Utopia can be conceived as a possibility - a space within language, a set of principles, or the p... more Utopia can be conceived as a possibility - a space within language, a set of principles, or the product of technological development - but it can-not be separated from questions of place, or more accurately, questions of "no place." In between the theoretically imaginable utopia and its realisation in a particular time and place, there is a space of critique, which is exploited in anti-Utopian and critical dystopian narratives. In Science Fiction narratives of this kind, technology is responsible for the transformation of the utopian impulse into a set of principles that are precisely stated and rigidly enforced. The critique focuses on the impossibility, due to the reductive force of instrumental reason, of any systematic realisation of a eutopia where the positive qualities of freedom, individualism and creativity are nurtured. The films <i>Minority Report</i>, directed by Steven Spielberg (Dreamworks, 2002), and <i>Gattaca</i>, written and direct...
Eye tracking has proved particularly valuable in highlighting the micromovements that underpin vi... more Eye tracking has proved particularly valuable in highlighting the micromovements that underpin visual perception and, in doing so, can provide insight into the fine-grained structures of aesthetic perception in both film and the visual arts. In mapping the movements of the eye, it also provides a platform for understanding how attention varies over definite durations. This is particularly important for the study of aesthetic attention, which not only gauges what is observed, but how the duration of viewing affects the viewer&#39;s relationship with the visual object. It is not only about seeing something-recognising qualia and objects that occupy the visual field-but also becoming aware of how the appearance of an object changes over time; an awareness that informs the viewer&#39;s further investigation of the image. The results from eye tracking studies do not readily reveal this process of becoming aware of visual difference because individual fixations could also be attributed to non-aesthetic forms of viewing, such as recognising objects and responding to movement. In order to demonstrate the usefulness of eye tracking in the study of aesthetic perception, there has to be some form of evaluation of the relationship between the short duration of eye movements and the longer duration of aesthetic awareness. This relationship can be better understood through a comparison of aesthetic attention in film and the visual arts. Although both film and the visual arts place an emphasis on the visual object, there is a structural difference in how the time of viewing is managed. In film, viewing time is moderated by a range of devices from the simple movement of bodies within the frame, to the time of the shot and the broader rhythms of editing. By changing the visual field over definite durations that are not controlled by the viewer, these devices also delimit eye movement. The shorter the duration, the more likely it is that the eye reflexively responds to change rather than according with the will of the spectator or signalling conscious deliberation. This can be contrasted with aesthetic attention in the visual arts-in particular sculpture, photography and painting-in which there is no change in the material form of the image and the duration of viewing is not scripted. This lack of a temporal constraint, means that there is more time for the eye to attend to the momentary variations in appearance but also diverge from the demands of utilitarian perception. The paper proposes that eye tracking could provide some valuable information on the structure of aesthetic attention provided that that results are analysed in terms of clearly specified durations. Aesthetics and aesthetic perception It is important to first provide a framework for understanding aesthetics because the term is used quite broadly in both popular and academic milieux to describe a variety of things, including the formal attributes of works, types of social value, judgements of taste and forms of attention. In the field of aesthetics the differences are manifold and many of the theories are
In Chapter 5 affect is considered as corporeal tension and intensity in two modernist works by th... more In Chapter 5 affect is considered as corporeal tension and intensity in two modernist works by the Ballets Russes, Léonide Massine’s Parade (1917) and Vaslav Nijinsky’s L’après-midi d’un faune (1912). Following Massumi’s theory of affect as an autonomous intensity and Susan Langer’s similarly transcorporeal notion of a “continuum of feeling,” the chapter explores forms of dance in which affect is grounded in the material gestures of the body and located in the tensions required to create these abstract forms. Feeling was not suppressed in avant-garde dance but rather depersonalised and de-psychologised, following a different logic from the model of emotion as self-expression that dominated classical ballet in the nineteenth century.
The rapid development of predictive technologies from simple pre-emptive text to voice-activated ... more The rapid development of predictive technologies from simple pre-emptive text to voice-activated virtual assistants raises questions about how we engage with bodies of knowledge mediated by algorithms. Predictive technologies with increasingly adaptive algorithms supported by machine learning, have the capacity to learn alongside us, gleaning information to better understand behavioural patterns and predict human action and intention. These technologies are often promoted in terms of how they assist human users and are evaluated in terms of their speed and relevance. This valorisation of speed is underpinned by an algorithmic means-end logic that is not subject to the durational constraints of human perception and attention. Indeed, the inhuman time of an algorithm has to be adjusted to fit the lived time of human thought and action. Drawing on the work of Henri Bergson and Bernard Stiegler among others, this paper argues the quest for speed in the development of search technologies constructs a future in which time is reduced to discrete possibilities and disregards the lived delay immanent to human thought.
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
This article examines how we increasingly delegate the task of memorisation to networked devices ... more This article examines how we increasingly delegate the task of memorisation to networked devices and associated applications, such as Google search. Human memory is supplemented by the proliferation of voice assistants embedded in mobile, wearable and situated devices that provide ready access to common knowledge as well as reminders for procedural tasks. Previous research in the field of transactive memory, investigating how search engines and networked information discourage memorisation, underpins the examination of these emergent technologies. However, the article extends the argument further by examining not just access to information but when it is interpolated into everyday activity and how this is facilitated by voice interfaces. At stake is deciding which aspects of our networked technology should be developed in order to support rather than supplant human memory in conscious decision-making.
In the study of film, Nöel Carroll (2001) coined the term the “paradox of suspense” to refer to a... more In the study of film, Nöel Carroll (2001) coined the term the “paradox of suspense” to refer to a situation in which rewatching a film continues to invoke suspenseful feelings. According to the paradox, the tension associated with anticipation and uncertainty persists even though the spectator definitely knows what will happen (Carroll 2001). Many of the articles on the paradox and suspense examine the narrative events shaping spectator or player knowledge (Branigan 1992; Gerrig 1997; Ortony, Clore, and Collins 1988; Prieto-Pablos 1998; Smuts 2008; Yanal 1996), however, this paper takes a slightly different approach by addressing factors that contribute to the feeling of suspense irrespective of the awareness of specific narrative events. By examining videogames, we also shift the frame of reference from narration to gameplay and the way players prepare for suspenseful events. We argue that videogames require a particular attitude manifest in the gameplay that continues to foster su...
Creative practice in advertising is often lauded for its novelty, which is recognised in industry... more Creative practice in advertising is often lauded for its novelty, which is recognised in industry awards and other forms of peer evaluation. However, advertising is commonly required to address broad audiences, which means it needs to reflect popular and common cultural ideas. When developing ideas for a new project, advertising creatives usually undertake a research process that allows them to draw upon popular culture texts and previous advertisements. In the pre-digital era, this activity largely depended on the creative’s relationship to their social milieu, but following the arrival of the Internet and the search engine, the creative research process has expanded in scope and become much faster. However, the idea that search, and we refer particularly to Google search, neutrally supports creative practice requires greater scrutiny. In this article, we explore how Google connects advertising creatives to cultural references by considering research on practitioners’ everyday acti...
Abstract This paper investigates how the study of dance and the visibility of the moving body can... more Abstract This paper investigates how the study of dance and the visibility of the moving body can be used to rethink the conceptualisation of place. Examining the dancing body reveals an unspoken corporeal knowledge that subsists in our engagement with the everyday world, and exceeds our ways of talking or writing about dance as an art form. The body inscribes the space it moves across, leaving trajectories and choreographic lines and, due to its tangibility, also comes to corporeally fill or occupy a place. It is about understanding the movement of bodies in terms of the physical expression of the performer but also from the perspective of an audience, which serves as a third person perspective on corporeal expression. When watching a body move, the observer becomes attentive to the gestures, rhythm, intentionality, and the crowd of virtual movements that accompany it. Through the work of dance theorists such as Rudolf Laban, we examine how the dancing body oscillates between the intentional and the observed in the constitution of the sensual dimensions of space. Most importantly we explore how dance shifts the point of focus away from place as a locale to place as a site of corporeal witnessing.
Cosmopolitanism requires individuals to imagine themselves not just as members of local and natio... more Cosmopolitanism requires individuals to imagine themselves not just as members of local and national groups but as part of a global and, to some degree, abstract “community” of strangers. In doing so, it raises questions about how we can communicate with and imagine others beyond the horizon of local community or even the nation state (James 1996). Theorising the formation of cosmopolitan identities requires examining how we engage with, create, and reify this community of strangers through global publics—those public forums and spaces in which this attachment to others is made manifest—and the manner by which they are mediated by technologies of communication.
This is a speculative paper examining the intersection between theories of affect and theories of... more This is a speculative paper examining the intersection between theories of affect and theories of discourse, with a particular interest in the role of experiential time. We argue that scholars who examine the relationship between discourse and affect tend to limit discourse to propositional content and the question of cognition. We take as a point of departure William James's work on the emotions and the body in order to raise questions concerning time and affect. This allows us to examine the temporality and materiality of discourse and the relationship between the utterance and experience in what we call the 'enunciative body'.
This article takes as its object of analysis the graphic novel adaptation of Paul Auster&#39;... more This article takes as its object of analysis the graphic novel adaptation of Paul Auster&#39;s novel City of Glass (1985) by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli (2004). The adaptation serves as the ground upon which to analyse the differences between novels and graphic novels with respect to how they employ metafictional devices. Keywords graphic novels metafiction Paul Auster adaptation Metafiction involves the use of strategies, in most cases peculiar to the medium, which force the reader to reflect on the fictionality of the text and, consequently, the nature of writing. One of the main targets of such strategies is the reader&#39;s perception of the unity of the narrative voice and its role in establishing a coherent ontology. One of the strengths of Auster&#39;s novel is its capacity to establish and then subvert the narrative voice through a series of unexplained ontological shifts in the plot and repeated contraventions of the rules separating the author, character and narrator. The reader is continually seduced into thinking that the precision of the narration will lead to a coherent account of the relationship between the various plot strands, but this assumption is repeatedly challenged, as is the reliability of the authorial voice.
There has long been an interest in the formal properties of comic books and bandes dessinées, in ... more There has long been an interest in the formal properties of comic books and bandes dessinées, in particular, how the structure of the page as a succession of panels constitutes a form of reading, hence the use of expressions such as &#39;sequential narrative&#39; to describe the medium. There is no question that this aspect of the comic book is important and that many of the medium&#39;s conventions have developed to facilitate the telling of a story, however, this article focuses on the visual rhythms that inform the reading movement but are not reducible to narrative events. Of particular interest are the surface properties of line and colour that exceed any representational function and have the capacity to speed up, or indeed, slow down the reading process. To address this issue, the article will investigate the relationship between comic books and painting and the difference in how the viewer &#39;stands before&#39; the image. Painting is often assumed to arrest the movement of the eye, to hold the attention of the viewer, whereas comic books are said to guide the viewer from one image to the next. This leads to the implication that painting invokes aesthetic contemplation and comic books do not. The article will address these issues through a reworking of the aesthetic theories of Jean-François Lyotard, Norman Bryson and James Elkins, in particular their speculations on the time involved in viewing a painting. Examples will be drawn from Kathryn and Stuart Immonen&#39;s Moving Pictures and Bernar Yslaire and Jean-Claude Carrière&#39;s The Sky over the Louvre; two graphic novels that investigate aesthetic contemplation and incorporate famous artworks into the narrative.
Animation and comic books share a common field in that both are composed of images sequenced in t... more Animation and comic books share a common field in that both are composed of images sequenced in time: one is driven mechanically and electronically in projection, and the other by the peripatetic and wilful actions of the reader. However, the single comic book panel has its own duration which is co- ordinated both by the exigencies of the narrative and the graphic properties of the two-dimensional pictorial plane. The gestural movement of the artist is implied in each line and it is this movement that presents itself as a ground for understanding movement in both comic books and two-dimensional drawn animation. It is movement that is retained in the animated figure, in the form of the outline, but also runs tangentially in the articulation of both reading movement and artistic gesture.
Creative practice in advertising is often lauded for its novelty, which is recognised in industry... more Creative practice in advertising is often lauded for its novelty, which is recognised in industry awards and other forms of peer evaluation. However, advertising is commonly required to address broad audiences, which means it needs to reflect popular and common cultural ideas. When developing ideas for a new project, advertising creatives usually undertakes a research process that allows them to draw upon popular culture texts and previous advertisements. In the pre-digital era this activity largely depended on the creative’s relationship to their social milieu, but following the arrival of the Internet and the search engine, the creative research process has expanded in scope and become much faster. However, the idea that search, and we refer particularly to Google search, neutrally supports creative practice requires greater scrutiny. In this article we explore the emergence ofhow Google search as a transactive memory partner that connects advertising creatives to cultural references by considering research on practitioners’ everyday actions through the lens of transactive memory theory and models of creative process.
This article examines how we increasingly delegate the task of memorisation to networked devices ... more This article examines how we increasingly delegate the task of memorisation to networked devices and associated applications, such as Google search. Human memory is supplemented by the proliferation of voice assistants embedded in mobile, wearable and situated devices that provide ready access to common knowledge as well as reminders for procedural tasks. Previous research in the field of transactive memory, investigating how search engines and networked information discourage memorisation, underpins the examination of these emergent technologies. However, the article extends the argument further by examining not just access to information but when it is interpolated into everyday activity and how this is facilitated by voice interfaces. At stake is deciding which aspects of our networked technology should be developed in order to support rather than supplant human memory in conscious decision-making.
Utopia can be conceived as a possibility - a space within language, a set of principles, or the p... more Utopia can be conceived as a possibility - a space within language, a set of principles, or the product of technological development - but it can-not be separated from questions of place, or more accurately, questions of "no place." In between the theoretically imaginable utopia and its realisation in a particular time and place, there is a space of critique, which is exploited in anti-Utopian and critical dystopian narratives. In Science Fiction narratives of this kind, technology is responsible for the transformation of the utopian impulse into a set of principles that are precisely stated and rigidly enforced. The critique focuses on the impossibility, due to the reductive force of instrumental reason, of any systematic realisation of a eutopia where the positive qualities of freedom, individualism and creativity are nurtured. The films <i>Minority Report</i>, directed by Steven Spielberg (Dreamworks, 2002), and <i>Gattaca</i>, written and direct...
Eye tracking has proved particularly valuable in highlighting the micromovements that underpin vi... more Eye tracking has proved particularly valuable in highlighting the micromovements that underpin visual perception and, in doing so, can provide insight into the fine-grained structures of aesthetic perception in both film and the visual arts. In mapping the movements of the eye, it also provides a platform for understanding how attention varies over definite durations. This is particularly important for the study of aesthetic attention, which not only gauges what is observed, but how the duration of viewing affects the viewer&#39;s relationship with the visual object. It is not only about seeing something-recognising qualia and objects that occupy the visual field-but also becoming aware of how the appearance of an object changes over time; an awareness that informs the viewer&#39;s further investigation of the image. The results from eye tracking studies do not readily reveal this process of becoming aware of visual difference because individual fixations could also be attributed to non-aesthetic forms of viewing, such as recognising objects and responding to movement. In order to demonstrate the usefulness of eye tracking in the study of aesthetic perception, there has to be some form of evaluation of the relationship between the short duration of eye movements and the longer duration of aesthetic awareness. This relationship can be better understood through a comparison of aesthetic attention in film and the visual arts. Although both film and the visual arts place an emphasis on the visual object, there is a structural difference in how the time of viewing is managed. In film, viewing time is moderated by a range of devices from the simple movement of bodies within the frame, to the time of the shot and the broader rhythms of editing. By changing the visual field over definite durations that are not controlled by the viewer, these devices also delimit eye movement. The shorter the duration, the more likely it is that the eye reflexively responds to change rather than according with the will of the spectator or signalling conscious deliberation. This can be contrasted with aesthetic attention in the visual arts-in particular sculpture, photography and painting-in which there is no change in the material form of the image and the duration of viewing is not scripted. This lack of a temporal constraint, means that there is more time for the eye to attend to the momentary variations in appearance but also diverge from the demands of utilitarian perception. The paper proposes that eye tracking could provide some valuable information on the structure of aesthetic attention provided that that results are analysed in terms of clearly specified durations. Aesthetics and aesthetic perception It is important to first provide a framework for understanding aesthetics because the term is used quite broadly in both popular and academic milieux to describe a variety of things, including the formal attributes of works, types of social value, judgements of taste and forms of attention. In the field of aesthetics the differences are manifold and many of the theories are
In Chapter 5 affect is considered as corporeal tension and intensity in two modernist works by th... more In Chapter 5 affect is considered as corporeal tension and intensity in two modernist works by the Ballets Russes, Léonide Massine’s Parade (1917) and Vaslav Nijinsky’s L’après-midi d’un faune (1912). Following Massumi’s theory of affect as an autonomous intensity and Susan Langer’s similarly transcorporeal notion of a “continuum of feeling,” the chapter explores forms of dance in which affect is grounded in the material gestures of the body and located in the tensions required to create these abstract forms. Feeling was not suppressed in avant-garde dance but rather depersonalised and de-psychologised, following a different logic from the model of emotion as self-expression that dominated classical ballet in the nineteenth century.
The rapid development of predictive technologies from simple pre-emptive text to voice-activated ... more The rapid development of predictive technologies from simple pre-emptive text to voice-activated virtual assistants raises questions about how we engage with bodies of knowledge mediated by algorithms. Predictive technologies with increasingly adaptive algorithms supported by machine learning, have the capacity to learn alongside us, gleaning information to better understand behavioural patterns and predict human action and intention. These technologies are often promoted in terms of how they assist human users and are evaluated in terms of their speed and relevance. This valorisation of speed is underpinned by an algorithmic means-end logic that is not subject to the durational constraints of human perception and attention. Indeed, the inhuman time of an algorithm has to be adjusted to fit the lived time of human thought and action. Drawing on the work of Henri Bergson and Bernard Stiegler among others, this paper argues the quest for speed in the development of search technologies constructs a future in which time is reduced to discrete possibilities and disregards the lived delay immanent to human thought.
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
This article examines how we increasingly delegate the task of memorisation to networked devices ... more This article examines how we increasingly delegate the task of memorisation to networked devices and associated applications, such as Google search. Human memory is supplemented by the proliferation of voice assistants embedded in mobile, wearable and situated devices that provide ready access to common knowledge as well as reminders for procedural tasks. Previous research in the field of transactive memory, investigating how search engines and networked information discourage memorisation, underpins the examination of these emergent technologies. However, the article extends the argument further by examining not just access to information but when it is interpolated into everyday activity and how this is facilitated by voice interfaces. At stake is deciding which aspects of our networked technology should be developed in order to support rather than supplant human memory in conscious decision-making.
In the study of film, Nöel Carroll (2001) coined the term the “paradox of suspense” to refer to a... more In the study of film, Nöel Carroll (2001) coined the term the “paradox of suspense” to refer to a situation in which rewatching a film continues to invoke suspenseful feelings. According to the paradox, the tension associated with anticipation and uncertainty persists even though the spectator definitely knows what will happen (Carroll 2001). Many of the articles on the paradox and suspense examine the narrative events shaping spectator or player knowledge (Branigan 1992; Gerrig 1997; Ortony, Clore, and Collins 1988; Prieto-Pablos 1998; Smuts 2008; Yanal 1996), however, this paper takes a slightly different approach by addressing factors that contribute to the feeling of suspense irrespective of the awareness of specific narrative events. By examining videogames, we also shift the frame of reference from narration to gameplay and the way players prepare for suspenseful events. We argue that videogames require a particular attitude manifest in the gameplay that continues to foster su...
Creative practice in advertising is often lauded for its novelty, which is recognised in industry... more Creative practice in advertising is often lauded for its novelty, which is recognised in industry awards and other forms of peer evaluation. However, advertising is commonly required to address broad audiences, which means it needs to reflect popular and common cultural ideas. When developing ideas for a new project, advertising creatives usually undertake a research process that allows them to draw upon popular culture texts and previous advertisements. In the pre-digital era, this activity largely depended on the creative’s relationship to their social milieu, but following the arrival of the Internet and the search engine, the creative research process has expanded in scope and become much faster. However, the idea that search, and we refer particularly to Google search, neutrally supports creative practice requires greater scrutiny. In this article, we explore how Google connects advertising creatives to cultural references by considering research on practitioners’ everyday acti...
Abstract This paper investigates how the study of dance and the visibility of the moving body can... more Abstract This paper investigates how the study of dance and the visibility of the moving body can be used to rethink the conceptualisation of place. Examining the dancing body reveals an unspoken corporeal knowledge that subsists in our engagement with the everyday world, and exceeds our ways of talking or writing about dance as an art form. The body inscribes the space it moves across, leaving trajectories and choreographic lines and, due to its tangibility, also comes to corporeally fill or occupy a place. It is about understanding the movement of bodies in terms of the physical expression of the performer but also from the perspective of an audience, which serves as a third person perspective on corporeal expression. When watching a body move, the observer becomes attentive to the gestures, rhythm, intentionality, and the crowd of virtual movements that accompany it. Through the work of dance theorists such as Rudolf Laban, we examine how the dancing body oscillates between the intentional and the observed in the constitution of the sensual dimensions of space. Most importantly we explore how dance shifts the point of focus away from place as a locale to place as a site of corporeal witnessing.
Cosmopolitanism requires individuals to imagine themselves not just as members of local and natio... more Cosmopolitanism requires individuals to imagine themselves not just as members of local and national groups but as part of a global and, to some degree, abstract “community” of strangers. In doing so, it raises questions about how we can communicate with and imagine others beyond the horizon of local community or even the nation state (James 1996). Theorising the formation of cosmopolitan identities requires examining how we engage with, create, and reify this community of strangers through global publics—those public forums and spaces in which this attachment to others is made manifest—and the manner by which they are mediated by technologies of communication.
This is a speculative paper examining the intersection between theories of affect and theories of... more This is a speculative paper examining the intersection between theories of affect and theories of discourse, with a particular interest in the role of experiential time. We argue that scholars who examine the relationship between discourse and affect tend to limit discourse to propositional content and the question of cognition. We take as a point of departure William James's work on the emotions and the body in order to raise questions concerning time and affect. This allows us to examine the temporality and materiality of discourse and the relationship between the utterance and experience in what we call the 'enunciative body'.
This article takes as its object of analysis the graphic novel adaptation of Paul Auster&#39;... more This article takes as its object of analysis the graphic novel adaptation of Paul Auster&#39;s novel City of Glass (1985) by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli (2004). The adaptation serves as the ground upon which to analyse the differences between novels and graphic novels with respect to how they employ metafictional devices. Keywords graphic novels metafiction Paul Auster adaptation Metafiction involves the use of strategies, in most cases peculiar to the medium, which force the reader to reflect on the fictionality of the text and, consequently, the nature of writing. One of the main targets of such strategies is the reader&#39;s perception of the unity of the narrative voice and its role in establishing a coherent ontology. One of the strengths of Auster&#39;s novel is its capacity to establish and then subvert the narrative voice through a series of unexplained ontological shifts in the plot and repeated contraventions of the rules separating the author, character and narrator. The reader is continually seduced into thinking that the precision of the narration will lead to a coherent account of the relationship between the various plot strands, but this assumption is repeatedly challenged, as is the reliability of the authorial voice.
There has long been an interest in the formal properties of comic books and bandes dessinées, in ... more There has long been an interest in the formal properties of comic books and bandes dessinées, in particular, how the structure of the page as a succession of panels constitutes a form of reading, hence the use of expressions such as &#39;sequential narrative&#39; to describe the medium. There is no question that this aspect of the comic book is important and that many of the medium&#39;s conventions have developed to facilitate the telling of a story, however, this article focuses on the visual rhythms that inform the reading movement but are not reducible to narrative events. Of particular interest are the surface properties of line and colour that exceed any representational function and have the capacity to speed up, or indeed, slow down the reading process. To address this issue, the article will investigate the relationship between comic books and painting and the difference in how the viewer &#39;stands before&#39; the image. Painting is often assumed to arrest the movement of the eye, to hold the attention of the viewer, whereas comic books are said to guide the viewer from one image to the next. This leads to the implication that painting invokes aesthetic contemplation and comic books do not. The article will address these issues through a reworking of the aesthetic theories of Jean-François Lyotard, Norman Bryson and James Elkins, in particular their speculations on the time involved in viewing a painting. Examples will be drawn from Kathryn and Stuart Immonen&#39;s Moving Pictures and Bernar Yslaire and Jean-Claude Carrière&#39;s The Sky over the Louvre; two graphic novels that investigate aesthetic contemplation and incorporate famous artworks into the narrative.
Animation and comic books share a common field in that both are composed of images sequenced in t... more Animation and comic books share a common field in that both are composed of images sequenced in time: one is driven mechanically and electronically in projection, and the other by the peripatetic and wilful actions of the reader. However, the single comic book panel has its own duration which is co- ordinated both by the exigencies of the narrative and the graphic properties of the two-dimensional pictorial plane. The gestural movement of the artist is implied in each line and it is this movement that presents itself as a ground for understanding movement in both comic books and two-dimensional drawn animation. It is movement that is retained in the animated figure, in the form of the outline, but also runs tangentially in the articulation of both reading movement and artistic gesture.
Creative practice in advertising is often lauded for its novelty, which is recognised in industry... more Creative practice in advertising is often lauded for its novelty, which is recognised in industry awards and other forms of peer evaluation. However, advertising is commonly required to address broad audiences, which means it needs to reflect popular and common cultural ideas. When developing ideas for a new project, advertising creatives usually undertakes a research process that allows them to draw upon popular culture texts and previous advertisements. In the pre-digital era this activity largely depended on the creative’s relationship to their social milieu, but following the arrival of the Internet and the search engine, the creative research process has expanded in scope and become much faster. However, the idea that search, and we refer particularly to Google search, neutrally supports creative practice requires greater scrutiny. In this article we explore the emergence ofhow Google search as a transactive memory partner that connects advertising creatives to cultural references by considering research on practitioners’ everyday actions through the lens of transactive memory theory and models of creative process.
This article examines how we increasingly delegate the task of memorisation to networked devices ... more This article examines how we increasingly delegate the task of memorisation to networked devices and associated applications, such as Google search. Human memory is supplemented by the proliferation of voice assistants embedded in mobile, wearable and situated devices that provide ready access to common knowledge as well as reminders for procedural tasks. Previous research in the field of transactive memory, investigating how search engines and networked information discourage memorisation, underpins the examination of these emergent technologies. However, the article extends the argument further by examining not just access to information but when it is interpolated into everyday activity and how this is facilitated by voice interfaces. At stake is deciding which aspects of our networked technology should be developed in order to support rather than supplant human memory in conscious decision-making.
In analysing adaptation, the first rule is to look for equivalencies between the "original" and a... more In analysing adaptation, the first rule is to look for equivalencies between the "original" and adapted text, the book represents an event this way and the film another, but this is only the beginning of the analysis. For the difference between the texts is not simply one of directorial or authorial choice, it is also determined by cultural value, technological changes and, most importantly, the nature of the medium itself. In this article, I take as my subject the adaptation of the short story Minority Report into film and use this to speculate on the limits of each medium. I do not limit my analysis to the adaptation of the story but to those concepts embedded in the story which have themselves been adapted into narrative form. This is central to the understanding of science fiction texts, which often speculate on the future through exploring the limits of scientific and philosophical concepts. The works of many science fiction authors are generated by the concept itself rather than character, plot or setting. In Minority Report, the concept is precognition and its use in law enforcement. The examination of how precognition is adapted into film and book is further complicated by the fact that science fiction itself functions as a form of precognition. There is a certain reflexivity involved in the representation of precognition, where we are shown images of the future within a medium that is itself creating a future world. In following the representation of precognition from one medium to another we also have cause to reflect upon the medium itself and how it delimits the precognition. Each medium develops different techniques for speculating upon and articulating a conception of the future. Film adapts the literary description of events into a visible world. In Minority Report, the broad meaning of precognition in the book is restricted to the concept of foreseeability, where the future is visualisable, rather than predicted or foretold. To highlight the cinematic function of the foreseeable, I adopt Henri Bergson's criticisms of the belief in a foreseeable future. Bergson's critique allows the experiential aspects of foreseeability-what does it mean to experience an actual future-to be contrasted with the structural features of cinematic narration. Through examining the experiential aspects of future prediction, the article broadens its scope to include an examination of the expressive limits of cinema, unlike logico-scientific examinations of precognition where the emphasis is generally on the
What does it mean to see time in the visual arts and how does art reveal the nature of time? Henr... more What does it mean to see time in the visual arts and how does art reveal the nature of time? Henri Bergson and Visual Culture: A Philosophy for a New Aesthetic investigates these questions through the work of the French philosopher Henri Bergson, whose theory of time as duration made him one of the most prominent thinkers of the fin de siècle. Although Bergson never developed an aesthetic theory and did not explicitly write on the visual arts, his philosophy gestures towards a play of sensual differences that is central to aesthetics. This book rethinks Bergson’s philosophy in terms of aesthetics and provides a fascinating and original account of how a Bergsonian ideas aid in understanding time and dynamism in the visual arts. From an examination of Bergson’s influence on the visual arts, to a reconsideration of the relationship between aesthetics and metaphysics, Paul Atkinson explores what it means to reconceptualise the visual arts in terms of duration. He revisits four key themes in Bergson’s work – duration, gesture, life and perception. The Bergsonian aesthetics of duration is convincingly revealed through the application of these themes to a number of nineteenth and twentieth-century artworks. This book will introduce readers and art lovers to the work of Bergson, contribute to Bergsonian scholarship, as well as present new ways to understand the relationship between art and time.
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Papers by Paul Atkinson
From an examination of Bergson’s influence on the visual arts, to a reconsideration of the relationship between aesthetics and metaphysics, Paul Atkinson explores what it means to reconceptualise the visual arts in terms of duration. He revisits four key themes in Bergson’s work – duration, gesture, life and perception. The Bergsonian aesthetics of duration is convincingly revealed through the application of these themes to a number of nineteenth and twentieth-century artworks.
This book will introduce readers and art lovers to the work of Bergson, contribute to Bergsonian scholarship, as well as present new ways to understand the relationship between art and time.