Defining Desktop Films: From Spatial Interfaces to Algorithmic Cameras

Defining Desktop Films: From Spatial Interfaces to Algorithmic Cameras focuses upon the desktop film as its object of study; an audiovisual work which uses the graphical user interface of the computer as its visual basis. As a contribution to post-cinema and post-media theory, this master’s thesis seeks to reconcile the most pressing question raised by the desktop film’s essence: Can these artefacts be considered films? Borrowing from montage theory, film phenomenology, post-media theory and semantic genre theory, this project argues that the desktop film can be defined as an ‘in-between’ media object which is constructed and watched as though it is a film while presenting a visuality akin to that of the computer interface. Resultantly, a number of new devices, affordances and aesthetic qualities emerge from this confluence of media. Among them are the ‘spatial interface,’ which constitutes the visual space represented in the desktop film, and the ‘algorithmic camera,’ which is the device used to produce the desktop film’s images. Through the formal analysis of a selection of the desktop films, the object of study is shown to be an interdisciplinary form of image-making which demands its own manner of visual description as it comes of age in an increasingly codependent media landscape