The sensory screen: phenomenology of visual perception in early European avant-garde film

At the beginning of the twentieth century, certain artists, writers, and philosophers became intrigued by the profound ways in which filmic images could pervade aspects of modern thought and experience. For them, film had the potential to reveal radical new dimensions of sensory phenomena. The early development of avant-garde film-making in Europe is culturally crucial not only for its historical and conceptual context of creative transition, but also for its dynamic exploration of processes of visual perception. The central objective of this thesis is to expose and engage these profound perceptual issues within the specific sphere of graphic abstract film. The structural formation of the thesis entails the confluencing of material for analysis into a sequence of key areas comprising the central components of avant-garde cinematic visualisation. The visual implications of each area are analysed in specific depth, whilst acknowledging their respective interactivity. Significantly, the research applies analytic theories of phenomenology in order to focus incisively upon relevant early European avant-garde filmic imagery. The potential vitality of a phenomenological theorisation of early avant-garde film resides not only within their historical contemporaneity, but at the epistemological level of the mind's cognitive engagement with the realms of creative visualisation. It is a system of analysis which aims to establish a nuanced phenomenological theory of visual perception as a matter of prime sustenance to historically crucial cinematic art forms