Notes on Unstable Cinematic Horizons: Depth, Frontality, and Circularity in Cinematic Art Installations

Adopting a transhistorical and interdisciplinary approach, this article reflects on the multiplicity of contemporary screens and their influence on today’s modes of vision. Questioning the relational ontologies between screen, moving images, and body-technology, it analyzes three exhibitions that incorporate non-linear practices, reconfiguring the screen in three essential dimensions: depth (Baklite, 2016, Alexandre Estrela), laterality (Pedra Pedra, 2018, Hugo de Almeida Pinho), and circularity (Olho Zoomórfico/Camera Trap, 2018, Mariana Silva). The article also addresses changes undergone by the images’ frames and the consequent paradigm shift in how the viewer physically relates to these images, in order to consider perceptive, cognitive, and topological reconfigurations in moving image exhibition formats in museums and art galleries.