Architecture and Planning ETDs

Publication Date

4-28-1972

Abstract

Traditionally man has subjugated his visual media to a secondary, passive role. He has bombarded his senses with all forms of visual media from 3-D movies to Smell-o-vision, but still he refuses to see things with his mind rather than just with his eyes. The structure of visual media, cinema and television being the primary visual media, has in the past reinforced this mindless acceptance of information which has not changed in content in almost seventy years in the case of cinema and twenty-five years in the case of television. The content of our visual media has been based on the manipulation of audiences by a commercial entertainer, be it a television network or a film studio. Plot, story, and what commonly is known as drama are the devices that enable the commercial entertainer to manipulate his audience. This very act of manipulation, gratifying conditioned needs, is the primary motivation behind present messages from film and television. Expanded video is an answer to the emptiness of the current video messages. Expanded video reaches out and touches people's minds in a way that current video cannot. Expanded video encourages participation and fulfillment rather than manipulation of the audience. This study catalogs the manifestations of expanded video which presently exist: expanded cinema, guerilla television, computer films, and others. After exploring these revolutionary new media forms, this study links with a similar revolution in architecture and explains how the two forms of man's expression can affect mutual changes. Architecture, traditionally involved in the construction of static monuments to mankind, must be able to respond and adapt to man's changing needs. This study explores new concepts of architecture through the design of prototype theaters for expanded video. It proposes a more fluid, vibrating, changeable backdrop for the activities of man, an expanded architecture for an expanded video society.

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Architecture

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

School of Architecture and Planning

First Committee Member (Chair)

Don Paul Schlegel

Second Committee Member

Michel Louis Roger Pillet

Third Committee Member

Peter Walch

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