The Plot Twist in TV Serial Narratives

Projections ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-74
Author(s):  
Héctor J. Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Test Cases ◽  
Narrative Tradition ◽  
Unexplored Area ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Viewing Experience ◽  
Game Of Thrones

AbstractThis article explores the use of the plot twist in screen fictions. This is a largely unexplored area, as interest in this phenomenon has largely focused on the so-called “plot twist movie,” which is an older narrative tradition. In order to explain this aesthetic phenomenon, it draws on the model of surprise originally proposed by the cognitive psychologists Wulf Meyer, Rainer Reisenzein, and Achim Schützwohl. Plot twists are characterized by three distinct but intimately intertwined temporal segments and their corresponding functions, which are explained by this model. The objective of this article is to explore how cognitive-emotional interactions shape the aesthetic viewing experience and to identify how that experience relates to shows’ artistic qualities. Game of Thrones (S01 and S03), Homeland (S01), and Westworld (S01) will be used as test cases. In each of the three plot segments, there are specific processes that distinguish the experience of surprise as an aesthetic phenomenon.

The Hundred-Year-Old Question: Can American Cinema Be Saved?

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 37-47
Author(s):  
James Schamus
Keyword(s):  
American Film ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
American Cinema ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Theatrical Film ◽  
Streaming Services ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Ticket Prices ◽  
Film Experience ◽  
Viewing Experience

The Art House Convergence conference annually brings together hundreds of independent theater owners and supporters of arthouse cinema during the days preceding the Sundance Film Festival. When the organizers invited James Schamus to deliver the keynote address at their 2016 gathering, it was a commission he did not relish. The expected argument of such speeches is pretty much set in stone these days: cinema, understood primarily as feature films meant initially for theatrical exhibition, is under attack, and the keynote speaker's task is to rally the troops in its defense, soliciting applause for recent victories on the battlefield, and railing against the encroachments of the enemies of film, in particular the digital streaming services whose assaults on the sanctity of the theatrical viewing experience, and thus on the aesthetic object known as the theatrical film, grow ever more ferocious with each passing year. Schamus took on the task of delivering that speech, and then transforming it into this article for FQ. He concludes with a rousing plea to all regarding what he terms, “This vicious spiral of longer movies, higher costs and higher ticket prices,” that can only spell disaster for the supporter of truly independent American cinema. Schamus urges readers to stand with him (and all who love the genuine American film experience), to advocate for vibrant, varied, open-ended, hybrid, serial and ongoing open storytelling and entertainment.

scholarly journals Thousand Hands Bodhisattva: Aesthetics, Affect, Sensational Disability

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Weisong Gao
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Impaired ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Conventional Form ◽  
External Knowledge ◽  
Invisible Disability ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Viewing Experience ◽  
The Invisible

This project examines the performance Thousand Hands Bodhisattva by hearing impaired dancers and the ways in which the invisible disability might provoke divergent viewing experiences and feelings contingent upon how the performance is contextualized. This performance showcases formal dancing techniques to elicit the sensation of beauty and the valorization of virtuosity, the presumed spectating responses to the aesthetic value of the performance. However, if the external knowledge of the dancers' disability is prefigured to the spectators, the contextualized performance would stir unexpected responses among the viewers, such as a feeling of shame, admiration and so on, because their taken-for-granted assumptions are challenged that beauty is unquestionably associated with completeness, wholeness, and ability, and that disabled individuals are radically less self-sufficient than the able-bodied. Eventually, I attempt to argue that this performance exemplifies a certain type of queer formalism because, by simultaneously sticking with the conventional form of dance while mobilizing the sensation of disability to queer the viewing experience, it disrupts the presupposed, normative and predictable relationship between an artistic form and its reception.

From the Walls to the Web: Media Aesthetics, Technological Innovation, and Audience Attention to Artwork Representations

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 30-48
Author(s):  
Nicole Smith Dahmen
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Art Museum ◽  
Theory Model ◽  
Reciprocal Relationship ◽  
Media Theory ◽  
Aesthetic Theory ◽  
Art Object ◽  
Museum Websites ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Viewing Experience

Aesthetic theory considers the reciprocal relationship between the creator, the object, and the viewer of an artwork. When viewing artworks on a museum website, a new element is added to the aesthetic model: the mass-mediated representation of the art object. This research brings together art and media theory, as well as technological understanding, to study mass-mediated presentations of artworks and to gauge audiences' visual attention to artworks based on differences in media presentations. Study findings indicate that art museums are generally showing rigor for visual displays of their artworks on their websites, thereby providing a legitimate visiting experience for their virtual patrons. However, regarding technology, art museum websites are not fully embracing web capabilities. Eyetracking data provide empirical evidence of the effects of certain changed aesthetic variables in the viewing experience. From a theoretical perspective, the research showed how aesthetic theory can be placed within a media aesthetic theory model to study the mass mediated viewing experience.

Linear Visco-Resistive Computations of Magnetohydrodynamic Waves: I. The Code and Test Cases

1994 ◽  
Vol 144 ◽  
pp. 503-505
Author(s):  
R. Erdélyi ◽  
M. Goossens ◽  
S. Poedts
Keyword(s):  
Resonant Absorption ◽  
Numerical Code ◽  
Mhd Waves ◽  
Test Cases ◽  
Numerical Accuracy ◽  
Element Discretization ◽  
Flux Tubes ◽  
Magnetohydrodynamic Waves ◽  
Viscosity Coefficients ◽  
Magnetic Flux Tubes

AbstractThe stationary state of resonant absorption of linear, MHD waves in cylindrical magnetic flux tubes is studied in viscous, compressible MHD with a numerical code using finite element discretization. The full viscosity tensor with the five viscosity coefficients as given by Braginskii is included in the analysis. Our computations reproduce the absorption rates obtained by Lou in scalar viscous MHD and Goossens and Poedts in resistive MHD, which guarantee the numerical accuracy of the tensorial viscous MHD code.

Fluency as a determinant of the aesthetic-usability effect

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takahashi Tomoyo ◽  
Shinji Kitagami
Keyword(s):  
The Aesthetic
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