WHAT NO LONGER FEELS REAL: CONTEMPORARY HYPERREALITY AS FRAMED THROUGH 'THE CUT'

Abstract

Contemporary hyperreality exists as a system in which we are constantly interrupted, each media object interacted with existing totally mediated, half-real. The cut - a metaphoric device – extends existing cinematic logic to analyse objects of hyperreality, demonstrating how compounding interactions with simulations/simulacra structures how we experience reality. In taking the film theory of Kuleshov, Eisenstein and Murch, this thesis extends this cinematic language beyond cinema into spatial, temporal and societal experience. This essay concludes that time is no longer continuous, mental perception is fragmented and nostalgia functions as a sedative rather than clarity – the masses no longer consume the cut but live inside it.