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Abstract
Despite extensive media arts theory focusing on sound, the moving image and
the relationship between the audible and the visible, there has been scant research
into how the out-of-frame creates a sense of meaning in media art.
The thesis argues that the out-of-frame can be conceptualised as an out-offield
that creates a novel sense of meaning, in both linear and non-linear media works.
It explores the expressive possibilities of the out-of-frame to create such a notion of
meaning through the still image, the moving image and meta-data, and thence via a
series of media art works that employ a floating frame in their treatment and layering
of media assets. It also investigates the possibilities when these notions take place
over time.
Focusing upon media artworks that are almost exclusively narrative-based, the
thesis investigates the representation of an emergent out-of-frame, evaluating the
capacity of these works to test the use of an out-of-frame to expressively address such
meaningful peripheries. Whilst media arts theory and practice almost exclusively
focus on events within the frame, this thesis argues that a critical part of the media
experience is that of the unseen but represented, whether it be a place or character.
This is an allusive reference, much as the use of motif can be an evocation of
narrative elements both seen and unseen in temporal spaces.
The thesis proposes that recent digital media technologies offer a
revolutionary shift in the expression of the out-of-frame, realisations that will impact
on users of media technologies in the future. It explores this hypothesis in a number
of ways.
Firstly, it investigates how mise-en-scène and montage relate to each other
beyond traditional concepts as a basis for understanding the out-of-frame. Secondly, it
investigates areas not historically associated with mise-en-scène and montage, but are
now interrelated due to their inclusion and convergence in recent media technologies
and the out-of-frame. Thirdly, it attempts to understand this concept through an
examination of a number of case studies that explore the out-of-frame, in the precinematic,
the cinematic, and post-cinematic. Fourthly, the thesis explores two
experimental media art works, entitled Eavesdrop and Conversations, undertaken
collaboratively as part of the doctoral research, that focus on the out-of-frame.
Finally, it will examine a number of current and future media technologies and
how the out-of-frame is reflected in digital media and the post-cinema media
landscape.