This essay picks up on the invitation extended by the sessions on ‘MediaArcheology: Network(s)’ at FilmForum 2017 to engage, with some politicalurgency, in ‘an archaeological excavation of the post... Show moreThis essay picks up on the invitation extended by the sessions on ‘MediaArcheology: Network(s)’ at FilmForum 2017 to engage, with some politicalurgency, in ‘an archaeological excavation of the post-Fordist, post-industrial andglobal emergence of the Network(s).’ In a time and age in which the network, tospeak with Galloway and Thacker, ‘has emerged as a dominant form describingthe nature of control today, as well as resistance to it’1 such a historicizing moveseems all the more important, not just for the sake of historical depth, but also,in particular, in our attempts to re ne our understanding of the present-daysituation. Taking up their invitation and yet giving it a somewhat different twist,in this paper, I will appraise a genealogy of what could be seen as the inverse ofthe network, or the idea of networked connectivity, which, I argue, in the lastdecade has manifested itself most clearly in the desire to disconnect. Drawing alink between the current preoccupation with digital detoxing and anti-televisionmovement of the 1980s onwards, I will re ect on the relevance of doing such ahistoricizing comparative analysis. Show less
In this paper I peruse a specific cinematic example of an uncertain-image, i.e.that of the film Creative Control (Dickinson 2016). My interest in this film lies not,or at least not per se, or not... Show moreIn this paper I peruse a specific cinematic example of an uncertain-image, i.e.that of the film Creative Control (Dickinson 2016). My interest in this film lies not,or at least not per se, or not solely, in its representationalism, but rather in itscapturing of various kinds of uncertainty, to which I will here attend bysituating the film against the backdrop of three different, yet interrelated,problematics related to the ubiquitous presence of digital imagingtechnologies: i.e., first, the concerns over digital or immaterial labour and theloss of eros; second, the use of contemporary cinematics (and thesuperimposition effect in particular) to address these and other issues relatedto living in ‘information-intensive mixed-reality environments;’ and third, thefilm’s own suggestive counter-image, which is that of the characters’ partlydefection, and, arguably, that of the image’s own withdrawal from the world. Show less
