2020/1 – #Intelligence

Recent Submissions

Now showing 1 - 20 of 25
  • Article
    Editorial NECSUS
    NECSUS Editorial Board (2020-07-06) , S. 1-3
  • Article
    The Golem in the age of artificial intelligence
    Vudka, Amir (2020-07-06) , S. 101-123
    What can the Jewish myth of the Golem teach us about artificial intelligence? This article explores the Golem as one of the earliest AI prototypes and a myth that became a foundational story of sci-fi cinema. The Golem sets the parameters of opposition between men and intelligent or sentient machines, and at the same time points to possible third options beyond the dialectic of control.
  • Article
    Tales from the cyborg society: The construction of subject and power in contemporary artificial intelligence(s) narratives
    Trapero-Llobera, Patricia (2020-07-06) , S. 125-149
    This paper aims to analyse how cultural products reflect the topics and problematics derived from technological and scientific advances and how these relate to the construction of the subject and power. Following the terminology coined by Foucault, this paper will refer to the technologies of the self and the technologies of power reflected in the new approaches to the relationships between humans and machines. In this precise sense, AI narratives and contemporary speculative fictions construct new realities in which factual truths turn into virtual realities and hyperrealities, usually addressing power and political conflicts as well as socioeconomic implications.
  • Article
    Playing intelligence: On representations and uses of artificial intelligence in videogames
    Hennig, Martin (2020-07-06) , S. 151-171
    Computer games take up and extend traditional discourses on technology and artificial intelligence (AI). Moreover, representations of AI in computer games include not only narrative aspects but game mechanics as well. This contribution focuses on what distinguishes this kind of AI representation from other medial forms, and on how different types of AI representation can be identified within the computer games field. Overall, representations of AI make visible specific aspects and ideologies implied by the gameplay. From this perspective, it is outlined how these representations work either as support for fantasies of self-empowerment or as an emphasis on medial determination; moreover, cultural functions and meanings provided in this context are highlighted.
  • Article
    Augmented consciousness: Artificial gazes fifty years after Gene Youngblood’s Expanded Cinema
    Biggio, Federico (2020-07-06) , S. 173-192
    The article aims to question the concept of ‘expanded cinema’ proposed by Youngblood in 1970, by taking into account three ‘artificial gazes’, corresponding to three exemplar technologies of the contemporary media scenario, commonly conceived as tools for the augmentation of both the visual perception and the cognition of the human being. Likewise, the experimental cinema, the technologies of augmented reality, machine learning, and search engine algorithms bring out the consciousness of the individuals in order to personalise the user experience in a computational way. Simultaneously, they are commonly intended as ludic and irrational experiences offered by the entertainment industry. The article’s purpose is therefore to tackle the ambiguity among the exact knowledge assured and produced by these technologies and the subjectivity of the gaze set by them. By recovering Youngblood’s inheritance, expanded cinema is not just a path to free the spectator’s gaze from the fictional representation of the world produced by the entertainment industry, but also a new media condition in which the users are requested to interpret and communicate the real world in a truthful way.
  • Article
    Ghost in the (Hollywood) machine: Emergent applications of artificial intelligence in the film industry
    Chow, Pei-Sze (2020-07-06) , S. 193-214
    This article examines the nascence of artificial intelligence (AI) applications in the film industry at the greenlighting stage, where decisions are made as to the feasibility and earning potential of film projects. Through a qualitative analysis of company case studies, interviews, and media discourse, I interrogate and tease out the ethical, cultural, and industrial implications emerging from the use of AI in influencing decisions about film production, particularly the ways the use of AI might influence notions of creativity, labour, and reception. The article sets out possible research agendas for the future to critically engage with this emerging phenomenon.
  • Article
    Clipping us together: The case of the Google Clips camera
    Bar-Gil, Oshri (2020-07-06) , S. 215-236
    This article uses the Google Clips camera as a case study to illustrate the impact of autonomous machine learning on self-perception, and to investigate how ‘delegation’ of our self to those cameras occurs. The research is based on reviews of the Google Clips camera, analysed using Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis (CAQDAS) and interpreted using Don Ihde’s postphenomonological framework complemented by Bruno Latour’s relation analysis. Positioning the Clips camera as a technological mediator, the analysis concentrates on human-technology-world interaction relations. The research findings include changes in self-perception through complex concepts, such as autonomy, agency, and rationality.
  • Article
    Critical re-modelling of algorithm-driven intelligence as commonist media practice
    Miyazaki, Shintaro (2020-07-06) , S. 237-257
    In order to understand artificial intelligence an approach called critical re-modelling operating within commonist media practice might be useful. Critical re-modelling builds on media archaeology, cognitive mapping, countervisuality, and critical theory; while commonist media practise is framed as a cyborgian approach à la Donna Haraway, critically inquiring and applying computational models. Selected works of art by Rybn, Algolit, and Tactical Tech provide concrete examples of critical re-modelling. The article concludes by arguing that the wider educational implications in humanities-driven scholarship of media cultures need to be reconsidered, in case commonist media practice seriously want to participate in the coming societal transformations of this decade.
  • Article
    A Machine for Viewing
    Misek, Richard (2020-07-02) , S. 259-262
    A Machine for Viewing is a three-episode hybrid of real-time VR experience, live performance, and video essay in which three moving image makers explore how we now watch films by putting various ‘machines for viewing’, including cinema and virtual reality, face to face.
  • Article
    A Machine for Viewing – 1 – A Frame of the Mind
    Shackleton, Charlie (2020-07-02) , S. 263-263
  • Article
    A Machine for Viewing – 2 – A Pillow of Light
    Misek, Richard (2020-07-06) , S. 265-265
  • Article
    A Machine for Viewing – 3 – Manual for a Disassembly of Cinema
    Raby, Oscar (2020-07-02) , S. 267-267
  • Review
    Futurist Cinema / Cubism and Futurism
    Bugaj, Malgorzata (2020-05-27) , S. 269-277
  • Review
  • Review
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  • Review
    VR on the film festival circuit: IDFA & IFFR 2017-2019
    Fux, Niv (2020-05-28) , S. 307-314
  • Article
    New perspectives on an imperfect cinema: Smartphones, spectatorship, and screen culture 2.0
    Szita, Kata (2020-07-06) , S. 31-52
    This paper discusses smartphone spectatorship with a focus on user participation, interactivity, and the fusion of digital media and mov-ing images. In the renaissance of mobile filmmaking and participatory culture, there is no longer a definite difference in the quality of cin-ema and mobile media tools. Instead, users’ embodied and social presences define the framework of viewing and production. By re-flecting on the sovereignty of smartphone film culture, this paper highlights the behavioural and cultural trajectories of mobile movie consumption, where content access merges with content production.
  • Review
  • Review
    Cinema and a ‘time-varying universe’: An interview with curator Antonio Somaini
    Lacurie, Occitane; Sauvage, Barnabé (2020-06-14) , S. 325-337