The assembly of objects – the Kuleshov Effect in exhibitions

I am currently in the process of formulating some thoughts on objects in collections (read more here and here) which I hope will coalesce into a proposal for an object-oriented exhibition.  While thinking and reading about what happens when objects are put in exhibitions, I came across a useful concept from film theory: The Kuleshov Effect. The Kuleshov Effect is a well-documented and often referenced concept in film-making, accredited to the Soviet film editor Lev Kuleshov. During the 1920s Kuleshov made a film showing an actor, edited together with a plate of soup, a dead woman, and a woman on a recliner. Supposedly, audiences would praise the acting, noting the subtle and minute shifts in the actor’s expressions showing hunger, grief, or lust. In reality, Kuleshov re-used the same clip of the expressionless actor – the effects were created entirely by the juxtaposition of images. This is what the footage looked like: Here is Alfred Hitchcock explaining the effect, interestingly referring to it as ‘pure cinematics, the assembly of film’: Kuleshov had laid the ground for Soviet montage cinema, which culminated most famously in Sergei Eisenstein’s The Battleship Potemkin (watch it here, it still carries a visual punch few movies can match – and his careful attention to objects makes it essential viewing for exhibition designers, me thinks). The Kuleshov Effect speaks to the fundamental inseparability of experience and the importance of context, not just...
Source: Biomedicine on Display - Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Tags: aesthetics curation displays/exhibits material studies Source Type: blogs