Final answer:
Dziga Vertov leveraged the camera lens to produce a new vision of reality, utilizing techniques like hidden cameras and montage to reveal life as it was lived. His work, emblematic of the belief in the transformative vision of cinema and photography, innovated the way cameras enhance human perception and communication.
Step-by-step explanation:
Dziga Vertov, a Soviet filmmaker and cinema theorist, was pivotal in exploring the capabilities of the camera lens as an instrument to capture reality. Vertov believed in the concept of 'Kino-eye', where the camera, much like a human eye, could capture reality in a way that was unachievable by the human eye alone. His experimental approach involved capturing life unscripted, using a variety of techniques including hidden cameras, unconventional angles, and montage editing to create a new reality on screen—an attempt to show life as it is lived.
Vertov's most renowned work, Man with a Movie Camera (1929), is an exemplary piece of cinema that showcases his innovative use of the camera. This film is a montage of footage from various Soviet cities, portraying urban life with an immediacy and dynamism that was new to cinema. It was Vertov's attempt to create an international language of cinema based on its ability to visually communicate. His manifestation of using the camera as a tool to enhance and extend human perception, not merely to record, resonates with the intentions of modern technologies transforming our senses and communication methods presented by artists like Umbo and Man Ray, and the scientific advancements in photography chemical processes.