whilst writing this blog there have been moments, (not as many as i would have liked), in which i have been in a flow state. flow state is a term used in psychology to describe a complete absorption of the subject in their work or activity to the extent in which they seem to lose a sense of space and time.

this got me thinking of french philosopher bernard stiegler, and his work ‘technics and time, 3: cinematic time and the question of malaise’.

in the work stiegler states that:

“cinema weaves itself into our time; it becomes the temporal fabric of those ninety or fifty-two minutes of unconscious consciousness that is characteristic of a being, a film viewer, strangely immobilised by motion.”

stiegler posits that the power of film comes from the coincidence between the film’s flow and that of the the film spectator’s consciousness, both linked by phonographic flux.

the coincidence of both temporal objects, initiates the mechanics of a complete adoption of the film’s time with that of the spectator’s consciousness. the spectator’s consciousness is captured and “channeled” by the flow of images.

it is because they are temporal objects that film and television are so easily consumed, as opposed to other media such as novels. they flow forth in stream of images in a similar way to the flowing forth of our consciousness.

stiegler hypothesises “an essentially cinema-graphic structure for consciousness in general, as if it had “always had cinema without realising it”

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