scholarly journals A Case for Psychoanalytic Visual Dispositif? : Birdman after the “Cinematographic Capture”

KOME ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-100
Author(s):  
Constance Goh
Keyword(s):  
Film Theory ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
The Other ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Reality Effect ◽  
Commercial Value ◽  
Live Action

This paper investigates how the notion of “superhero” in popular imagination, evident in the multiple live-action adaptations of Detective Comic’s and Marvel Cinematic Universe’s comic book heroes for their commercial value, has been debunked by Alejandro Inarritu’s 2014 Birdman. While the aforementioned dream factories affirm the fantasmatic “flight” inherent to these cinematic creations, especially symbolised by the aviating capacities of most of their superheroes, it is Inarritu’s Birdman, although not commercially comparable, that is theoretically significant here: the “flight” motif paradoxically gestures to the “capture” that is the very cinematic essence. Working with some key psychoanalytic theorists of the apparatus and later the suture, I shall argue that the messianic in this film, embodied by the male lead, whose waning career is resurrected from oblivion given Keaton’s subsequent work acknowledgement despite his Oscar nonsuccess, is revealed by this author to be ultimately the cinematographic apparatus that gives us Baudry’s transcendental subject, a concept arguably bound to his cinematic effect, a term with epistemological import. This paper will also redirect attention to the interpretative liberation associated with “flight", insisting that Baudry’s discussion of the cinematic dispositif is among the first to address the real, albeit with an emphasis on intelligibility, so that release from what I call the “cinematic capture”, a term that Todd McGowan defines as “uncritical subjectivity”, can be enacted. This thesis asserts that Birdman, proposed here as a case for psychoanalytic film theory, unintentionally exposes the traumatic real within the imaginary because of cinematic capture, thus leading to this discussion of the gaze, identification, narration, control and desire. In addition, it will appraise what Baudry calls the “knowledge effect” by responding to the following inquiries that encapsulate the critical stake here. How can one call this effect “knowledge” when the “subjective” of the transcendental subject becomes more pronounced with the other title of Baudry’s apparatus theory, which is suture theory? What can one say about the “reality effect” of the apparatus theory in an age of digitisation the emphasis of which is virtuality and, last but not least, can one argue that Inarritu’s Birdman is an illustrative intervention of the digitised post-cinematic?

scholarly journals The Eye, the Brain, the Screen – What Neuroscience Can Teach Film Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Paul Elliott
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Biology ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
Mirror Neuron ◽  
The Other ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Cross Model ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
The Brain

“I don’t believe that linguistics and psychoanalysis offer a great deal to the cinema. On the contrary, the biology of the brain – molecular biology – does.” Gilles DeleuzeModels of the brain are inextricably linked to the surrounding cultural episteme: whether it is viewed as a complex clockwork device, a computer, a self-regulating network or even a cinema screen, our understanding of neurophysiology has always relied on discourses and images taken from other fields. In turn, however, our knowledge of cerebral processes (such as sight for instance) has always, inevitably, affected the way that we approach artworks, literary texts and cultural artefacts.Based on this, this paper looks at how recent neuroscientific research on vision and cognition can help us better understand the processes inherent in film theory. Focussing mainly on the recently discovered concept of the mirror neuron but also citing synaesthesia and limbic perceptual processing, I suggest that neuroscience can provide us with a fertile new ground for thinking about areas such as spectatorship and the facilitation of emotional affect, it can also offer us alternatives to monolithic ideas like the Gaze and the patriarchal nature of visual pleasure.Prompted perhaps by a shift in scopic thinking, some recent neuroscientific research has even mirrored film and cultural theory by foregrounding notions such embodiment, cross-model perception and mimesis, adding to the dialogic relationship that exists between these two disciplines. This paper then is not only concerned with how different fields communicate but with how each can provide models, metaphors and frameworks for the other.

What Is Visible When Acting? Acting-Out, Passage à l’Acte and the Dialectics of the Gaze in Phenomenology and Psychoanalytic Theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Cristian Bodea
Keyword(s):  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Acting Out ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Real Process ◽  
Marina Abramovic ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Lacanian Theory

"The paper approaches acting from a phenomenological and psychoanalytic point of view. It sheds light on the intrinsic (i.e., invisible) resorts involved when someone is playing a role – or, better yet, assumes a role. In order to make these mechanisms visible, the paper relies on the premise that acting always involves an act. Using the Lacanian theory of acts, I demonstrate that there is a real process taking place when assuming a role, namely when the subject needs to objectify himself. This process can be traced back as far as the “time” of a pre-existent gaze. The aim of the paper is to substantiate the idea that it is necessary for the gaze to enter a dialectics in order for the subject to find its objective place. For illustration, two works of art are used: the performance The Artist is Present by Marina Abramović and the movie A Woman Under the Influence by John Cassavetes. Keywords: act, desire, gaze, objectify, the Other, presence without assignable present, the Real, (in)visible."

Hidden “holes” in the capital of banks and the supply of credit to the real sector of economy

2018 ◽  
pp. 49-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. E. Mamonov
Keyword(s):  
Credit Risk ◽  
The Other ◽  
Real Sector ◽  
Capital Management ◽  
Loan Loss ◽  
Short Term ◽  
The Real ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
The One

Our analysis documents that the existence of hidden “holes” in the capital of not yet failed banks - while creating intertemporal pressure on the actual level of capital - leads to changing of maturity of loans supplied rather than to contracting of their volume. Long-term loans decrease, whereas short-term loans rise - and, what is most remarkably, by approximately the same amounts. Standardly, the higher the maturity of loans the higher the credit risk and, thus, the more loan loss reserves (LLP) banks are forced to create, increasing the pressure on capital. Banks that already hide “holes” in the capital, but have not yet faced with license withdrawal, must possess strong incentives to shorten the maturity of supplied loans. On the one hand, it raises the turnovers of LLP and facilitates the flexibility of capital management; on the other hand, it allows increasing the speed of shifting of attracted deposits to loans to related parties in domestic or foreign jurisdictions. This enlarges the potential size of ex post revealed “hole” in the capital and, therefore, allows us to assume that not every loan might be viewed as a good for the economy: excessive short-term and insufficient long-term loans can produce the source for future losses.

Modeling mass transfer and substrate utilization in the boundary layer of biofilm systems

1998 ◽  
Vol 37 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 139-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harald Horn ◽  
Dietmar C. Hempel
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Layer ◽  
Mass Transfer ◽  
Reynolds Number ◽  
Film Theory ◽  
Substrate Utilization ◽  
The Other ◽  
Concentration Profiles ◽  
Hydrodynamic Conditions ◽  
Time Axis ◽  
Transfer Coefficients

The use of microelectrodes in biofilm research allows a better understanding of intrinsic biofilm processes. Little is known about mass transfer and substrate utilization in the boundary layer of biofilm systems. One possible description of mass transfer can be obtained by mass transfer coefficients, both on the basis of the stagnant film theory or with the Sherwood number. This approach is rather formal and not quite correct when the heterogeneity of the biofilm surface structure is taken into account. It could be shown that substrate loading is a major factor in the description of the development of the density. On the other hand, the time axis is an important factor which has to be considered when concentration profiles in biofilm systems are discussed. Finally, hydrodynamic conditions become important for the development of the biofilm surface when the Reynolds number increases above the range of 3000-4000.

BRIDGING THE ABYSS: VICTOR BASCH'S POLITICAL AND AESTHETIC MINDSET

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-107
Author(s):  
RAJESH HEYNICKX
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Political Reason ◽  
Political Position ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Jewish Art ◽  
Art Philosophy ◽  
Changing World

This essay cross-examines both the correlation and the disjunction between art philosophy and political reason in the thinking of the French Jewish art philosopher, Kant specialist and socialist politician Victor Basch (1863–1944). Two interwoven lines of questioning will be in play. One considers the extent to which Basch's theory of beauty, which was primarily grounded in a psychological theory of Einfühlung, was a corollary to his political ideas and practices. The other line of inquiry raises questions about how Basch's political position, namely his anti-facist defending of republican values, became influenced by his work on aesthetics. By answering both questions, this article challenges the traditional historiography of interwar aesthetics. The esaay shows how conceptual debates of aesthetics were not just sterile theoretical products, but to a large extent offered an apparatus to diagnose and orientate a rapidly changing world. Therefore this essay develops a reflection about the gaze needed to take in the complex historical situations from which aesthetic reflections grew, and which in turn they addressed.

scholarly journals Stochastic Processes with a Particular Type of Variograms

2007 ◽  
Vol 2007 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunsheng Ma
Keyword(s):  
Stochastic Process ◽  
Brownian Motion ◽  
Stochastic Processes ◽  
Series Expansion ◽  
Real Line ◽  
Random Fields ◽  
The Other ◽  
Simple Construction ◽  
The Real ◽  
Line Form

This paper is concerned with a class of stochastic processes or random fields with second-order increments, whose variograms have a particular form, among which stochastic processes having orthogonal increments on the real line form an important subclass. A natural issue, how big this subclass is, has not been explicitly addressed in the literature. As a solution, this paper characterizes a stochastic process having orthogonal increments on the real line in terms of its variogram or its construction. Our findings are a little bit surprising: this subclass is big in terms of the variogram, and on the other hand, it is relatively “small” according to a simple construction. In particular, every such process with Gaussian increments can be simply constructed from Brownian motion. Using the characterizations we obtain a series expansion of the stochastic process with orthogonal increments.

scholarly journals GazeEMD: Detecting Visual Intention in Gaze-Based Human-Robot Interaction

Robotics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 68
Author(s):  
Lei Shi ◽  
Cosmin Copot ◽  
Steve Vanlanduit
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Load ◽  
Real World ◽  
Robotic Manipulator ◽  
Similarity Score ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
The Other ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Run Length ◽  
The Real

In gaze-based Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), it is important to determine human visual intention for interacting with robots. One typical HRI interaction scenario is that a human selects an object by gaze and a robotic manipulator will pick up the object. In this work, we propose an approach, GazeEMD, that can be used to detect whether a human is looking at an object for HRI application. We use Earth Mover’s Distance (EMD) to measure the similarity between the hypothetical gazes at objects and the actual gazes. Then, the similarity score is used to determine if the human visual intention is on the object. We compare our approach with a fixation-based method and HitScan with a run length in the scenario of selecting daily objects by gaze. Our experimental results indicate that the GazeEMD approach has higher accuracy and is more robust to noises than the other approaches. Hence, the users can lessen cognitive load by using our approach in the real-world HRI scenario.

The Interpretation of Stereo-Disparity Information: The Computation of Surface Orientation and Depth

Perception ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 387-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Mayhew
Keyword(s):  
Surface Orientation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Surface Patch ◽  
Viewing Distance ◽  
Horizontal Disparity ◽  
Planar Surface ◽  
Local Surface ◽  
Stereo Disparity ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Perceptual Phenomenon

Two methods for interpreting disparity information are described. Neither requires extraretinal information to scale for distance: one method uses horizontal disparities to solve for the viewing distance, the other uses the vertical disparities. Method 1 requires the assumption that the disparities derive from a locally planar surface. Then from the horizontal disparities measured at four retinal locations the viewing distance and the equation of local surface ‘patch’ can be obtained. Method 2 does not need this assumption. The vertical disparities are first used to obtain the values of the gaze and viewing distance. These are then used to interpret the horizontal disparity information. An algorithm implementing the methods has been tested and is found to be subject to a perceptual phenomenon known as the ‘induced effect’.

scholarly journals Distribution of rational points on the real line

1973 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. K. Sheng
Keyword(s):  
Algebraic Number ◽  
Rational Number ◽  
Real Line ◽  
Rational Points ◽  
The Other ◽  
Liouville Numbers ◽  
The Real ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Image Position

It is well known that no rational number is approximable to order higher than 1. Roth [3] showed that an algebraic number is not approximable to order greater than 2. On the other hand it is easy to construct numbers, the Liouville numbers, which are approximable to any order (see [2], p. 162). We are led to the question, “Let Nn(α, β) denote the number of distinct rational points with denominators ≦ n contained in an interval (α, β). What is the behaviour of Nn(α, + 1/n) as α varies on the real line?” We shall prove that and that there are “compressions” and “rarefactions” of rational points on the real line.

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