Vampyroteuthis Infernalis as Media Theory

Author(s):  
Geoffrey Winthrop-Young
2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-26
Author(s):  
Antonio Somaini

"The article presents an in-depth analysis of Benjamin’s use of the German term Medium, in order to show how his entire media theory may be interpreted as centered on the interaction between the historically changing realm of the technical and material Apparate, and what he calls in the artwork essay the »Medium of perception«: the spatially extended environment, the atmosphere, the milieu, the Umwelt in which sensory experience occurs. This notion of »Medium of perception« is then located within the long, post-Aristotelian tradition of the media diaphana, whose traces can be found in the 1920s and 1930s in the writings of authors such as Béla Balázs, Fritz Heider, and László Moholy-Nagy. </br></br>Der Artikel präsentiert eine eingehende Analyse von Benjamins Gebrauch des deutschen Begriffs »Medium«, um zu zeigen, dass seine gesamte Medientheorie fokussiert ist auf die Interaktion zwischen dem historisch veränderlichen Bereich der technischen und materiellen Apparate einerseits und dem, was er in dem Kunstwerkaufsatz das »Medium der Wahrnehmung« nennt: die räumlich ausgedehnte Umgebung, die Atmosphäre, das Milieu, die Umwelt, in der sinnliche Wahrnehmung erfolgt. Dieser Begriff des »Mediums der Wahrnehmung« wird dann innerhalb der langen, nacharistotelischen Tradition der media diaphana verortet, deren Spuren in den 1920er und 1930er Jahren in den Schriften von Autoren wie Béla Balázs, Fritz Heider und László Moholy-Nagy zu finden sind."


Author(s):  
Zuzana Kvetanová

The submitted study addresses the topic of the current state of the opinion journalism and its genres in the Slovak periodical press. The author draws attention to the question of classification of the opinion journalism of a rational and emotional type from the genre categorization point of view and, simultaneously, reflects on its application in the present journalistic practice. This brings a certain rate of confrontation between the defined theoretical premises and their subsequent practical (non-)implementation. The main objective of the study is to clarify the presence of genres of analytical and literary opinion journalism stated by media theory in the environment of the Slovak periodicals. Presentation of the basic terminological axis and the related explication of journalism genres included in the opinion journalism constitute the secondary objectives of the paper. For the purposes of achieving the set objectives, the author uses methods of logical analysis of text in combination with discourse analysis. Similarly, she predicts the evident presence of the phenomenon of hybridization in the Slovak journalistic practice.


Author(s):  
Jennifer Fay

`Siegfried Kracauer’s film and photographic theory along with cinematic records of early Antarctic exploration explain how this utterly inhospitable continent (Antarctica) and this media theory advance an alternative and denaturalized history of the present. Cinema has the capacity to reveal an earth outside of human feeling and utility without sacrificing the particularity that gets lost in scientific abstraction. And Antarctica, for so long outside of human history altogether, simply numbs feeling and refuses to yield to human purpose. It is also a continent on which celluloid encounters its signifying limits. Kracauer, this chapter argues, helps us to imagine an estranged and selfless relationship to an inhospitable or even posthospitable earth that may not accommodate us.


The aim of this volume is to introduce a largely neglected area of existing interactions between Greco-Roman antiquity and media theory. It addresses the question of why interactions in this area matter, and how they might be developed further. The volume seeks to promote more media attentiveness among scholars of Greece and Rome. It also aims to create more awareness of the presence of the classics in media theory. It foregrounds the persistency of Greco-Roman paradigms across the different strands of media theory. And it calls for a closer consideration of the conceptual underpinnings of scholarly practices around the transformation of ancient Greece and Rome into ‘classical’ cultures.


Author(s):  
Lisa Bode

On July 14, 2019, a 3-minute 36-second video titled “Keanu Reeves Stops A ROBBERY!” was released on YouTube visual effects (VFX) channel, Corridor. The video’s click-bait title ensured it was quickly shared by users across platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. Comments on the video suggest that the vast majority of viewers categorised it as fiction. What seemed less universally recognised, though, was that the performer in the clip was not Keanu Reeves himself. It was voice actor and stuntman Reuben Langdon, and his face was digitally replaced with that of Reeves, through the use of an AI generated deepfake, an open access application, Faceswap, and compositing in Adobe After Effects. This article uses Corridor’s deepfake Keanu video (hereafter shorted to CDFK) as a case study which allows the fleshing out of an, as yet, under-researched area of deepfakes: the role of framing contexts in shaping how viewers evaluate, categorise, make sense of and discuss these images. This research draws on visual effects scholarship, celebrity studies, cognitive film studies, social media theory, digital rhetoric, and discourse analysis. It is intended to serve as a starting point of a larger study that will eventually map types of online manipulated media creation on a continuum from the professional to the vernacular, across different platforms, and attending to their aesthetic, ethical, cultural and reception dimensions. The focus on context (platform, creator channel, and comments) also reveals the emergence of an industrial and aesthetic category of visual effects, which I call here “platform VFX,” a key term that provides us with more nuanced frames for illuminating and analysing a range of manipulated media practices as VFX software becomes ever more accessible and lends itself to more vernacular uses, such as we see with various face swap apps


Author(s):  
Silvia Budday ◽  
Sebastian Andres ◽  
Bastian Walter ◽  
Paul Steinmann ◽  
Ellen Kuhl

Wrinkling phenomena control the surface morphology of many technical and biological systems. While primary wrinkling has been extensively studied, experimentally, analytically and computationally, higher-order instabilities remain insufficiently understood, especially in systems with stiffness contrasts well below 100. Here, we use the model system of an elastomeric bilayer to experimentally characterize primary and secondary wrinkling at moderate stiffness contrasts. We systematically vary the film thickness and substrate prestretch to explore which parameters modulate the emergence of secondary instabilities, including period-doubling, period-tripling and wrinkle-to-fold transitions. Our experiments suggest that period-doubling is the favourable secondary instability mode and that period-tripling can emerge under disturbed boundary conditions. High substrate prestretch can suppress period-doubling and primary wrinkles immediately transform into folds. We combine analytical models with computational simulations to predict the onset of primary wrinkling, the post-buckling behaviour, secondary bifurcations and the wrinkle-to-fold transition. Understanding the mechanisms of pattern selection and identifying the critical control parameters of wrinkling will allow us to fabricate smart surfaces with tunable properties and to control undesired surface patterns like in the asthmatic airway. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Patterning through instabilities in complex media: theory and applications.’


1999 ◽  
Vol 38 (15) ◽  
pp. 3399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milun J. Raković ◽  
George W. Kattawar ◽  
Mehrűbe Mehrűbeoğlu ◽  
Brent D. Cameron ◽  
Lihong V. Wang ◽  
...  

1995 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 297-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl G. Helmer ◽  
Bernard J. Dardzinski ◽  
Christopher H. Sotak

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