Cinerama, "Glimpses...," and a new media-savvy audience

From this week’s readings and discussion, it is clear that by the 1950s, American landscapes were being presented in revolutionary new ways to cater to an evolving media-savvy audience. Fred Waller’s Cinerama and the Eames’ presentation of “Glimpses of the USA” are both evidence of and a way of encouraging a new aesthetic of viewing that fascinated an increasingly curious and cosmopolitan world. Under the guise of sharing technological advances and experimenting with new visual communication methods, these films also fortified a sense of nationalism within the US, as well as fostered international awe and envy when shown in settings like Syria and the Soviet Union. Beatriz Colomina describes “Glimpses of the USA” as “simply intensify[ing] an existing mode of perception” which speaks to the increasing speed of spectators’ ability to process moving images and the broadening awareness of what the human mind could process and how. In using new technological capabilities to access the public’s new kind of attention, Waller and the Eameses were able to make visual representations of America that established its role as both a world leader offering “the good life” and a technological giant that was simply ahead of the curve. The lasting impressions of these two works no doubt enabled the often inexplicable sense of American exceptionalism still seen today. In reconstituting space, structure, and time to manufacture their installations and the experience they facilitate, characteristically American innovation spawned new propagandistic tools to cater to, engulf, and influence the masses in a complex and lasting way. What this week’s discussions leave me with is wondering what makes innovators like these believe that they can or should create the things that they do? Are they aware of the gravity of appealing to audiences through such sensory techniques? Was it all just an experiment or were they confident with the same sense of technological and national superiority that they promote?