The transition from filmic to post-cinematic regimes has effectively surpassed the traditional boundaries of representation. As Steven Shaviro (2011) argues, we have entered a cultural-technological landscape defined by Post-Continuity. In this space, the screen no longer functions as a window, but as a hallucinatory field where digital simulation and “chaos cinema” generate what I perceive as a state of kinetic delirium.

As an observer of these shifts, I find the aesthetic of excess in directors like Michael Bay particularly telling. Often dismissed as “mindless,” Bay’s style is, in my view, a subversive auteurism of awesome. It prioritizes a “schizoid franticness” that supersedes traditional narrative logic. We are not just watching a story; our nervous systems are being “trained” to navigate the fragmented intensities of the 21st century.

Testing the limits of perception: Bay’s Chaos Cinema as a visceral training ground for the digital sensorium.

The technological trajectory from the early wireframes of Tron (1982) to the total immersion of Gravity (2013) reflects what William Brown (2013) describes as “Digital Cinema’s Conquest of Space.” In this environment, the camera is a virtual entity, liberated from physical constraints. For me, this provides what Scott Bukatman calls a “function of unreality”– a celebratory engagement with technology that sidesteps technocratic nightmares in favor of a kaleidoscopic sensory pleasure.

The “Digital Contour”: Gravity exemplifies the conquest of space, where the virtual camera eliminates the physical boundaries of the “off-camera,” fulfilling what Bukatman calls the ‘function of unreality’-a sensory liberation from the laws of physics.

Ultimately, I see this evolution culminating in Patricia Pisters’ concept of the “Neuro-image.” The screen is no longer a world “out there,” but a map of the brain’s internal architecture-fragmented and multi-layered. Whether through the simulation logic of The Matrix or the fractured loops of Source Code, post-cinema is a necessary reorganization of our perception. We are being re-trained to exist within a world that is increasingly weightless, non-linear, and undeniably digital.

The Neuro-image in practice: The digital image as a map of internal simulation. In this scene, ‘The Construct’ serves as a literal representation of Pisters’ theory, where the cinematic apparatus and the mind’s architecture become indistinguishable.

Post by: Rocío Cerqueiro

Bibliography

• Brown, W. (2013). SuperCinema: Film-Philosophy for the Digital Age. Oxford: Berghahn.
• Bukatman, S. (2003). ‘The Ultimate Trip: Special Effects and Kaleidoscopic Perception’, in Matters of Gravity. Durham: Duke University Press.
• Pisters, P. (2012). The Neuro-Image. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• Shaviro, S. (2016). ‘Post-Continuity: An introduction’, in Post-Cinema. REFRAME Books.