Welcome to Selective Viewing

Pipilotti Rist, Zimmer –Interactive video art installation, 1994/2000/2007.

I used to maintain a blog called The Celluloid Phantom. After going back to school, I put that project on indefinite hiatus. Now I’m ready to start anew. New platform, new content, new everything.

When I decided to call this blog “selective viewing” it was really a play on “collective viewing,” which dominated the film viewing experience up until the last few decades. For most of the 2oth century, a movie meant something you went out to see. Paradigmatically, this meant sharing a dark, voluminous theater with a multitude of strangers. I grew up in a time when movies were readily available to watch at home, or on a computer. Growing up, movies didn’t necessarily signify “theater” to me. While going out to the Multi-plex to see a movie was still an exciting event, I didn’t necessarily have to leave my living room to see a movie. I definitely didn’t have to encounter anyone outside of my family unit. I might leave the lights on, or pause the movie to heat up some leftovers in the microwave which was mere feet away. As I’ve grown older, this has become increasingly the case, particularly as the demands of impoverished student life have affected my entertainment budget.