This dissertation examines classical notions of image ontology and realism, and conceives of a necessary connection between these concepts and the more recent development of digital imaging technologies in cinema. The inquiry thus begins with the aesthetics and function of high-resolution digital imagery, both argued to pose ontological concerns, specifically for a medium traditionally based on analogical/indexical representation. Image spatial resolution functions as the ‘key feature’, facilitating the assimilation of the ‘recorded’ and the ‘synthesized’ digital. In this merger, the recorded part provides the ‘actual’ component of the image, based on which the computer generates further visual ‘possibilities’. The digital reconstruction of the image is, therefore, fashioned according to an initiating, ‘actual’ and ‘analogical’ condition. This mechanism is, of course, reminiscent of that of the Possible World Theory (PWT), in which ‘actual’ state of affairs provide the initiating conditions for the hypothesized ‘possible’. The PWT framework is also useful for providing a ‘working’ ontology for digital imagery. This aspect of its application, though explored, is still contested.
Computer operations hypothesize and construct visual possibilities often with a cinematic relevancy, or ‘realism’ in mind. This provision takes into account the laws of physics, including but not limited to, the simulation of optics and/or the achievement of photographic realism. Moreover, computer procedures operate in an increasingly ‘autonomous’ manner, generating visual possibilities at the request, but also instrumentally independent of the artist. By virtue of its automatic/autonomous image generating measures, this procedure is argued to be analogous to that of the traditional cinematic apparatus, the cinematography camera itself, which not only provides the actual component of the image, but also the working ‘ethics’ according to which its digital counterpart operates. By making this connection, we come full circle to traditional notions of image ontology and technology in cinema, specifically those set forth by André Bazin.
