Computational spatiality: virtual production, generative media and the politics of screen space
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Virtual production and generative media are often placed in different technical histories. One grows from real-time engines, tracking and computer graphics; the other from machine learning and statistical generation. On a screen, however, they now meet. Both change the conditions under which a location can be built, altered, approved and carried from one stage of production to another. This article develops computational spatiality as a concept for studying that change. The argument draws on film-space theory, visual culture, software and infrastructure studies, recent research on virtual production, and selected technical and regulatory documents. It is anchored in three visible configurations: virtual scouting for The Lion King, camera–environment reciprocity in StageCraft production, and spatial instability in video-generation systems. Virtual production usually works through persistent geometry. A tracked camera calls up a new view of a world whose coordinates and assets remain in place. Generative video works differently. It can deliver a convincing room, street or landscape without preserving every spatial relation behind the image. These are not rival stages in one technological sequence. They are distinct ways of making a screen world hold together. In both, creative authority moves beyond the composition of a frame. It also lies in setting parameters, controlling assets, choosing outputs, repairing continuity and deciding which version becomes public. Computational spatiality names this wider field. It helps explain why new freedom at the level of the image can arrive with stronger dependence on platforms, models, metadata, specialist labour and proprietary infrastructures.
Source: Research Square
Authors: Rui Gao, Yiwei Zhao, Weice Yang
Institutions: Hengdian College of Film & Television, Longwood University
Language: English
Topic: Cinema History and Criticism
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7208772007