ABSTRACT
By comparing the notion of grain that came from the analog film industry to the one of pixels which came out of the digital era, the purpose was to underline the aesthetic and political choices embedded in this technical criterion and how the spectators, whatever their age, could create or recreate their time perception according to the resonance of the grain or the pixel, from the viewpoint of a personal and social imaginary construction. This chapter discusses the links between certain technologies of knowledge (video camera, microscope, telescope, programming codes) and the concepts they engender, the impact of historical, political, and economic conditions on their use and on their positions in popular imagination. It focuses in particular on the aesthetic and technical notion of grain, commonly used during the analog era, and the pixel as a notion which has already undermined several layers of sensibility, ways of life, style, and film dynamics.
