HD Aesthetics
Terry Flaxton
Bristol University, UK
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
Abstract
Professional expertise derived from developing and handling higher resolution technologies now
challenges academic convention by seeking to reinscribe digital image making as a material process.
In this article and an accompanying online resource, I propose to examine the technology behind
High Definition (HD), identifying key areas of understanding to enable an enquiry into those
aesthetics that might derive from the technical imperatives within the medium. (This article is
accompanied by a series of online interviews entitled A Verbatim History of the Aesthetics, Technology
and Techniques of Digital Cinematography. To access this please go to http://www.flaxton.btinternet.
co.uk/KTV.htm. This resource seeks to circumscribe and circumlocute the wide variety of
interests and usages of incoming digital media with specific relation to the effects of increased
definition being offered by incoming digital technologies). Having discussed the aesthetics of HD
I will then proceed to look at the consequent artistic and cultural implications. The article concludes
by challenging the current academic position of the digital as being inherently immaterial.
