The Unbearable Cost of Development and Printing Plants

Technospes, Litmus Paper on Techno-industrial Problems in the 1970s Italian Cinema

Abstract

Result of the merger in 1973 between Spes and Tecnostampa, the two most important Italian film development and printing societies, Technospes constitutes a complex case study to re-investigate the deep crisis that subverted the cinematographic industry since the 1960s, shifting the focus from socio-cultural to techno-industrial dynamics. In the rapid decline of Technospes during the 1970s, one can read not only the epilogue of two great protagonists of the technical history of Italian cinema, but the emergence of new material and technical needs and patterns that marked the audiovisual industry of the late 20th century. The factory—to be understood as a site of aggregation as wells as an urban building, an infrastructure, and a set of costs—is the place in which resonates the most the collapse of the old system and the emerging of new industrial criticalities (safety rules, maintenance costs, technological updates, production flexibility).