New Theater

In its earliest days, film could only be experienced in the theater. Later, with the invention of television, DVD players, projectors, and eventually smartphones and even VR devices, the mediums through which we watch films multiplied. Because of their portability and convenience, many people gradually chose not to return to the theater at all.

Compared to a kind of fundamentalist devotion to the “pure” theatrical experience, these new devices and shifting environments have made film viewing more private, more convenient, more idiosyncratic. There is no inherent hierarchy here—no better or worse—only new layers of possibility, and even new forms of pleasure.

In this photography project, I hope to echo Hiroshi Sugimoto’s “Theaters” series, attempting to find and capture the “theaters” of a new era.