Beyond Spatial Montage: Windowing

The book, Beyond Spatial Montage: Windowing, or, the Cinematic Displacement of Time, Motion and Space by Michael Betancourt, will be published by Focal Press, ISBN 9781138938663. This theory challenges received notions about the relationship between realism, spatial montage and their formal organization in the production of motion pictures.

The approach employed is new, arguing for a hybrid analysis that engages both heuristics and critical hermeneutics without the formalist ideologies that have commonly limited analysis of this type. Its concern primarily with morphology and structure provides a semiotic foundation for situating multiple image works in relation to earlier montage and long take-based media as well as expanded cinema. The taxonomy this research supports offers a new framework to conceptualize the linkages between media art and narrative cinema.

Michael Betancourt is an artist, historian, theorist, and curator concerned with the convergence of digital technology and capitalist ideology. His essays have been translated into Chinese, French, Greek, Italian, Persian, Portuguese, and Spanish. His book, The History of Motion Graphics: From Avant-Garde to Industry in the United States was published in 2013.


For more information go to michaelbetancourt.com.

• Beyond Spatial Montage: Windowing presents a general theory that can be directly applied to media production.
• This book book can be easily incorporated into existing classes on motion pictures, motion graphics and film study.
• It contains a general primer on the role of realism in commercial media.


• You can read a preview of the theory here.

Beyond Spatial Montage: Windowing is now available on Amazon.com!