The Modernist Cinema - Text 3
Like the museum’s white cube, Kubelka’s darkened screening room aspired to complete unobtrusiveness. Its principal vocation was to transmit the artist’s vision without loss. In his words, Kubelka reports that “I gave this concept of cinema the name ‘invisible cinema’ to underline the fact that an ideal cinema should not at all be felt, should not lead its own life, it should practically not be there.”[5] This utopian space became “invisible,” first of all, by draping its walls, seats and ceiling in black velvet; black carpet also covered the floor, while the doors (and any other remaining structure) were also painted black. In this way any possible reflection of light onto the screen was in theory made impossible. But this quest for erasure found its most radical expression in another potential source of distraction: the audience itself. The seats in this cinema thus took the form of small booths: boxed in, enclosed on the sides (except at the level of the forearms and hands), they were also covered with a kind of dome, concealing each person from the one behind them. In this arrangement, the projection screen should become the sole point of visual reference. In other respects, the technical elements of this minimalist viewing system did not vary from that of a classical movie theatre. This architectural concept thus embodied a certain conception of cinema, one marked by the idealism of the person who conceived it.
