Cinema, Trance and Cybernetics

Ute Holl moves from anthropological and experimental cinema through nineteenth-century psychological laboratories, which she shows developed techniques for testing, measuring, and classifying the mind that can be seen as a prehistory of cinema

Ute Holl is Professor of Media Studies at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Research on history of cinema and perception, techniques of visualising and knowledge, history of electro-acoustics and radiophonics, anthropologic and experimental cinema. She is fellow of Forscherkolleg Bild-Evidenz, FU Berlin.

Foreword: Fade into Black by Pasi Valiaho Preface to the English Translation of Cinema, Trance and Cybernetics In the Beginning 1.1 Cinema 1.2 Cybernetics 1.3 Knots 1.4 To Whom it May Concern 2.1 Discretions Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead: Ball, New York 2.2 Depersonalizations Maya Deren: Hollywood, Haiti 2.3 Deviations Jean Rouch: Accra, Paris 2.4 Compressions Albert Londe: Paris, Paris 3.1 Mental Apparatuses 3.1.1 Experimenting 3.1.2 Shocking 3.1.3 Registering 3.1.4 Going Wild 3.1.5 Resonating 3.1.6 Rhythmizing 3.2 Psyco-Motor Activity 3.3 Psycho-Drama 3.4 Psycho-Technology 3.5 Psycho-Reflexology 3.5.1 Feelings and Emotions 3.5.2 The Ends of Paranoia 3.5.3 Personality Changes 3.5.4 Ways of Behaving 3.5.5 Nerve Priming 3.5.6 Reflex Arcs 3.5.7 Media or Homeostatic Processes 4.1 The Truth Won by Means of Film 4.1.1 Signals 4.1.2 Agitations 4.1.3 Explosions 4.1.4 Intervals 4.1.5 Experiences 4.1.6 Centers or Centrifuges 5. After All: Return to Receiver, Bibliography, Index.