The changing cinema spaces of Accra: Fragmented spectatorship and the loss of empathy

Cinema theatres are designed to foster collective emotional responses. Ghana’s capital Accra, like many other African cities, used to be full of such spaces. Urban infrastructures no longer support cinema theatres, and subsequently, television, video and small screens, in general, have replaced the dark room. This study explores some key aspects of how film spectatorship is embedded in the historical and current geography of Accra. It traces the undoing of cinema and its spaces, as well as the possible consequences of this development. The article retells an artistic research process that took place in a video parlour in Accra. The findings of the artistic research are supported in part by theories on space and apparatus. In Accra, collective spectatorship has turned into a mostly random event. Passers-by watch short glimpses of narratives without a pre-existing understanding of, nor commitment to, the narrative. Fragmented spectatorship can ultimately lead to a loss of shared feeling – empathy – between audience members and film characters, and as a consequence, between members of broader societal and even global contexts.