The phantasmagoria of screenscapes: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's cinematographic apparatus

ABSTRACT This article examines Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's distinctive engagement with film theory, arguing that her conception of the cinematographic apparatus diverges significantly from the dominant semio-psychoanalytic film theory of the 1970s. Through an analysis of Cha's anthology Apparatus: Cinematographic Apparatus: Selected Writings (1980) and her multimedia works, particularly Exilée (1980), I demonstrate how Cha developed a phantasmagoric model of the cinematic apparatus that emphasizes collective experience, environmental mediation, and the atmospheric interplay between presence and absence. Drawing on Walter Benjamin's concept of phantasmagoria and Francesco Casetti's recent work on screenscapes, this study situates Cha's theoretical and artistic practice within a genealogy of optical-environmental dispositifs that challenge the psychoanalytic paradigm's emphasis on interiority and passivity. Cha's approach foregrounds the dynamic relationship between technology, spectator, and space, offering an alternative framework for understanding cinema as the environmental media between worlds rather than merely a conduit for unconscious fantasy.