While space is exalted as the final frontier for the Trekkies of the world, it becomes the world for creators working in media like film and video. For an installation artist like David Hoffos, the created space is a means of exploring his inner world while insulating himself from the outer one. The video jammer, kelleY boleN, blends clips and venues to construct a new space with each live performance. And the stop-motion animator, Scott Portingale, fashions his stylized worlds one frame at a time. When filmmakers create, they define a space and the rules of that space, infusing it with up to at least five elements.

The first element is physical. Even in an abstract film, artists create a physical space by the seemingly simple act of pointing their lens. What?s in the space is in the frame, even if it?s only suggested to us, and what?s out is not, though that too may be inferred. David Hoffos? spaces play with illusion to create a new reality?a highly subjective one that viewers must interpret for themselves. The physical world of the film colours our perception of its story, along with the actions of its characters and the location fees payable to the appropriate municipal authority.

A filmmaker?s use of space can also reflect a mental or psychological state, from the crisp, stark, prairie-realist precision of a film like Hans Olson?s Baby Boots to the jarring, expressionist study of schizophrenia in Aaron Munson?s 2 Fall. If you have a theory or a point of view on any issue, then your film can reflect that, either overtly as in Leni Riefenstahl?s Triumph of the Will or Michael Moore?s Fahrenheit 9/11, or more subtly. The veteran documentary filmmaker, Robert Duncan, spoke of lighting his subject in Sheldon: A Story of Human Courage in warm golden tones, while giving the antagonist, Sheldon?s abuser, a much colder, blue-hued treatment.

Often, a constructed space sails on emotional currents. Entering the world of the filmmaker?s chosen space can expose us to a kaleidoscope of feelings, be it the wistfulness of first teenage love in Mike McLaughlin?s Maia and Jonah, the sorrow of bereavement in Gerry Potter?s Jake?s Gate or the simple joy of singing and dancing in Sharon Murphy?s The Breakout of the Masala Kid, to name just three. Filmed spaces are often carefully composed and constructed to communicate the filmmaker?s feelings, whether this is done consciously or not.

Similarly, a filmed space can contain spiritual elements, reflecting a personal religious vision or thoughts on the nature of existence, the afterlife or other gravitas. Filmmakers can take us to unexplored planes?not to mention the boats, buses and pogo sticks of diverse playgrounds of consciousness.

Finally, an art-space can engage us on a level that?s purely visceral. We may not be able to classify our reaction into convenient categories like physical or metaphysical: the work simply hits us in the gut, in the heart, between the eyes or over the head. We can always try to figure it out later, after leaving the immersive darkness of the cinema or viewing space; that?s called criticism, discourse or grounds for a lawsuit.

One of the delights of entering an art-space is that we may experience something quite different from what its creator encountered or intended. Constructivists?the learning theorists, not the Russian realists?tell us that we create our own meaning, drawing on our own state at the time?emotional, psychological, digestive, you name it?as well as our backstories, our predisposition to the subject, the medium or the artist, and any number of other factors. These factors may be intimately intertwined with the subject of the space in question, or have as much to do with it as Simon does with Garfunkel when the feud is back on.

For some filmmakers, the endgame is not so much to precipitate a specific reaction as to make a connection. Whether it?s getting in touch with millions or only with ourselves, filmmakers define and create spaces that cultivate ties of thought, feeling, belief or experience. It is this pursuit of further expression or understanding that allows us to connect with our collective past, make our present more bearable, and talk to our shared future.