The way Munsterberg talks about the inner and outer developments of film is similar to Sobchack’s distinction between subjective and objective technological presence. To examine both the distinction and the inseparability of the inner and outer developments that Munsterberg is discussing in 1915, I will compare them to Sobchack’s notion of the subjective and objective in electronic presence. The outer developments in Munsterberg’s writing correspond to Sobchack’s idea of objective presence, and in the most basic of terms, describe the physical, external experience of film, removed from connotation and interpretation, for example, the construction of film as individual pictures shown one after another. The inner developments, or subjective presence, is the way these objective practices are interpreted and experienced by the viewer, for example, if pictures are shown one after another fast enough, will create the illusion of movement on a screen. Munsterberg’s discussion of memory, emotion and attention in tandem with Sobchack, can be applied to the electronic technology of television, computer etc., Sobchack has an entirely ‘new’ form of presence to discuss in terms of Munsterberg’s ideas of inner and outer development.
