Barbara Sternberg

“Well, there are two phases: making and showing. Film and digital video are two different media and ideas come to me that call for one or the other. One major difference is that film has an emulsion one can work with, manipulate. Another difference is light, light in making an image on the emulsion, how they interact, and light in projection. I make films conscious of its properties, the essential nature of film— time, light — and rather than using the camera as simply a recording device, want the film aspects and form to be integral, to make a filmic experience for the viewer.

I do think we experience digital projections differently than film projections, something to do with the sense of depth, texture, and of reality, more inner than surface, a different presence. And sometimes the projector in the room can be heard rhythmically, part of the experience!

A digital copy of a film is a reproduction in a different medium, a translation. Various archives say they are preserving film by digitizing it, but this is not the case. Preserving would be having proper storage conditions, making internegs and new prints, restoring broken sprocket holes, etc. We don’t tell oil painters just use acrylic. We don’t hang up a large photograph of a painting on the wall in museums instead of the painting though it requires conservators to maintain it.”