scholarly journals Beneath sci-fi sound

2012 ◽  
pp. 49-63
Author(s):  
Nessa Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Sound Design ◽  
Independent Cinema ◽  
Surround Sound ◽  
Industry Standard ◽  
Sound Image ◽  
Mise En Scene ◽  
The Aesthetic

Primer is a very low budget science-fiction film that deals with the subject of time travel; however, it looks and sounds quite distinctively different from other films associated with the genre. While Hollywood blockbuster sci-fi relies on “sound spectacle” as a key attraction, in contrast Primer sounds “lo-fi” and screen-centred, mixed to two channel stereo rather than the now industry-standard 5.1 surround sound. Although this is partly a consequence of the economics of its production, the aesthetic approach to the soundtrack is what makes Primer formally distinctive. Including a brief exploration of the role of sound design in science-fiction cinema more broadly, I analyse aspects of Primer’s soundtrack and sound-image relations to demonstrate how the soundplays around with time rather than space, substituting the spatial playfulness of big-budget Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster sound with temporal playfulness, in keeping with its time-travel theme. I argue that Primer’s aesthetic approach to the soundtrack is “anti-spectacle”, working with its mise-en-scène to emphasise the mundane and everyday instead of the fantastical, in an attempt to lend credibility and “realism” to its time-travel conceit. Finally, with reference to scholarship on American independent cinema, I will demonstrate how Primer’s stylistic approach to the soundtrack is configured as a marketable identifier of its “indie”-ness.

The Part Is Greater Than the Whole

2020 ◽  
pp. 61-83
Author(s):  
Bruce Isaacs
Keyword(s):  
Sound Design ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
Formal Systems ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
Mise En Scene ◽  
Infinite Array ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Film Form

Pure cinema is defined in terms of the interrelationship of formal “fragments” that subtend an infinite array of formal systems within the work. In this model, the aesthetic philosophy of the fragment is developed through the seminal work of Raymond Bellour, one of the most astute of the classical Hitchcockian theorists. The fragment structures aesthetic form across mise en scène, montage, sound design, and narrative. The philosophy of the fragment is read in further detail and greater philosophical specificity through the historical tension between Eisenstein’s montage as whole and Deleuze’s attempts to read montage through the itinerary of the part. The resonance or vibration of the part is read as intensity, structuring the “excessive affect” that underpins the aesthetic of the fragment in film form. The aesthetic of the fragment is revealed in close formal analyses in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, Argento’s Suspiria, and De Palma’s Union Station sequence in The Untouchables.

The Serpent Son (1979): A Science Fiction Aesthetic?

2018 ◽  
pp. 109-122
Author(s):  
Tony Keen
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Greek Tragedy ◽  
Doctor Who ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Production Methods ◽  
Greek Drama ◽  
Mise En Scene ◽  
Visual Style ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Clear Statement

This chapter discusses the aesthetics of the BBC’s 1979 production of Frederick Raphael and Kenneth McLeish’s The Serpent Son, an adaptation of Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy, which critics at the time associated with science fiction. Certainly, the design of costumes, sets, props and lighting, together with the direction and camerawork, gave this trilogy a non-realist studio-bound visual style familiar to contemporary British television science fiction series, such as Doctor Who, Blake’s Seven and The Tomorrow People. By examining elements of the mise-en-scène, this chapter assesses whether this was a deliberate choice. It argues that, whilst the similarities are there, the aesthetic is as much the result of production methods employed at the time by the BBC, and general non-mimetic approaches to the production of Greek drama on screen, as it is any deliberate attempt to recall the science fiction genre. But the choice of a non-realist aesthetic for Greek tragedy is also a clear statement about the producers’ view of the connection between the modern audience and ancient Greek texts. This is the dominant visual aesthetic of productions of Greek tragedy on British television around this time, many of which employed similar distancing effects.

Sensational cinema

2019 ◽  
pp. 77-87
Author(s):  
David MacDougall
Keyword(s):  
Prior Experience ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Cultural Assumptions ◽  
Sound Image ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Taste And Smell ◽  
Determining Factor

This chapter explores the role of the senses and the evocation of physical sensations in the cinema. These evocations go well beyond the five primary senses, for combinations of images and sounds are capable of evoking a much wider range of sensations, including those of movement, pressure, nearness and distance, wetness and dryness, viscosity, and so on. Citing Michel Chion, the author examines how the sound-image becomes a new phenomenon that produces a heightened sense of material presence. Although some of our responses are innate, others are dependent on context and prior experience, which may explain why films are more effective at evoking sensations of touch than those of taste and smell. The aesthetic profile of different cultures is another determining factor. The cinema can be coercive in forcing us to see what we would ordinarily avoid, challenging our moral and cultural assumptions. On the other hand, its very technology often misrepresents our seeing, leading to an anodyne version of reality. The sensations and emotions of the filmmaker while filming are also important, and for filmmakers the cinema can become a way of reaching out to the subjects of their films. But ‘sensory’ cinema, the author argues, should not become an end in itself; it only achieves value within the context of other human relations.

Music You Can Hear

2020 ◽  
pp. 164-184
Author(s):  
Bruce Isaacs
Keyword(s):  
Sound Design ◽  
Harmonic Structure ◽  
Silent Cinema ◽  
Rear Window ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Harmonic Progression ◽  
Sound Image ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Film Form

Pure cinema and the aesthetic of the fragment is applied to the evolution of sound design in the avant-garde experimental silent cinema of the late 1920s and early 1930s. The chapter argues that sound design and production were conceived as an integral part of pure cinema, tracing the emergence and development of this philosophy within the avant-garde experimentation with film form. Hitchcock articulates a philosophy of pure sound cinema in a number of critical pieces from the early 1930s and is clearly influenced by European philosophies of the early sound image. Sound is read as a discretized contrapuntal aesthetic form, achieving the abstraction of noise as patterned pitch (melodic), harmonic, and rhythmic form, in close analyses of Rear Window, The Birds, the imitation of Vertigo’s “Madeleine” theme in Pino Donaggio’s score for Dressed to Kill, and Argento’s cutting of a narrative segment of Deep Red to a standard blues I–IV–V harmonic progression. The chapter concludes with a study of Bernard Herrmann’s concluding sonic motif in Psycho as the purity of sound form in its atonal harmonic structure.

scholarly journals AMBIANTAL ARCHITECTURE − Defining the role of water in the aesthetic experience of sensitive architectural ambiances

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 ◽  
pp. 03003
Author(s):  
Gregory Brais Sioui
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Mise En Scene ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Stone Walls ◽  
Selection Of

As part of an aesthetic approach, this design-driven research crosses two methodologies to determine what is common in the perception of atmospheres. First, a case study of the Vals’ thermal baths led to the selection of five different atmospheres, which were then analyzed through Gaston Bachelard’s lens, using his book L’Eau et les rêves. Bachelard’s literary symbols echo in the water contained in the massive stone walls of Vals to identify common generators of sensitive atmospheres. Secondly, the construction of this dialogue between Bachelard and Zumthor leads to the elaboration of a conceptual architecture project which is voluntarily emotional. This project introduces the elements that generate five ambiences identified in the case study. This design-driven research is therefore based on Grégoire Chelkoff’s theory of formants as vectors of transmission of atmosphere, pre-existing to the experienc of a place, of an ambiance, which itself is understood as a sensitive result of the perception of the space. The present work therefore questions the role of water as a sensitive vector, from the architecture to its visitor. The goal is to determine how water, in varying manifestations, can be used by architects to create a “mise en scène” for a voluntarily emotional architecture.

Speculative Realism and Science Fiction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Willems
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Cormac Mccarthy ◽  
Doris Lessing ◽  
Speculative Realism ◽  
Neil Gaiman ◽  
The World ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Quentin Meillassoux

A human-centred approach to the environment is leading to ecological collapse. One of the ways that speculative realism challenges anthropomorphism is by taking non-human things to be as valid objects of investivation as humans, allowing a more responsible and truthful view of the world to take place. Brian Willems uses a range of science fiction literature that questions anthropomorphism both to develop and challenge this philosophical position. He looks at how nonsense and sense exist together in science fiction, the way in which language is not a guarantee of personhood, the role of vision in relation to identity formation, the difference between metamorphosis and modulation, representations of non-human deaths and the function of plasticity within the Anthropocene. Willems considers the works of Cormac McCarthy, Paolo Bacigalupi, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, Doris Lessing and Kim Stanley Robinson are considered alongside some of the main figures of speculative materialism including Graham Harman, Quentin Meillassoux and Jane Bennett.

Jazz als gelungene Performance – Ästhetische Normativität und Improvisation

2014 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Bertinetto
Keyword(s):  
Successful Performance ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Right

Die Hauptfrage, die ich in diesem Aufsatz diskutieren will, ist die folgende: Welche sind die ästhetisch-normativen Voraussetzungen für das richtige Verständnis und die richtige Evaluation von Jazz? Meine These lautet: Die Jazzästhetik ist eine Ästhetik der gelungenen Performanz. Sie ist nicht eine Ästhetik der Unvollkommenheit. Ich werde meine Argumentation in die folgenden Abschnitte gliedern. Nach der Einleitung (I.) wird in Abschnitt II. die ›These der Unvollkommenheit‹ dargestellt und in III. werden anschließend einige Argumente dagegen diskutiert. In den Abschnitten IV. und V. werden die für die Jazzästhetik wichtige Frage nach dem »Fehler« und das entscheidende Thema der Normativität untersucht. Dazu werde ich geltend machen, dass die ›These der Unvollkommenheit‹ insbesondere deswegen unbefriedigend ist, weil sie die spezifische Normativität von Jazz als Improvisationskunst missversteht. In Abschnitt VI. wird schließlich erklärt, in welchem Sinne von einer Normativität der gelungenen Performanz die Rede sein kann und warum dies für unser Verständnis von Jazz bedeutend ist. Abschließend (VII.) wird diese Idee gegen mögliche Einwände verteidigt.<br><br>In this paper I aim at discussing the aesthetic-normative conditions for the right understanding and the right evaluation of jazz. My main point is this: The aesthetics of jazz is an aesthetics of the successful performance, rather than an aesthetics of imperfection. The paper will be structured as follows. SectionI introduces the topic. SectionII presents the ›imperfection thesis‹, while III discusses some arguments against it. Sections IV and V investigate two related questions: the first is about the role of the »mistake« in jazz; the second concerns the crucial topic of normativity. At this regard I will maintain that the ›imperfection thesis‹ does not work, especially because it misunderstands the specific normativity of jazz as improvisational art. Section VI is devoted to clarifying both in which sense the idea of a normativity of the successful performance is sound and why this idea is important for understanding jazz. Finally (VII) I defend this view against possible objections.

Idleness and Freedom in Michel de Montaigne’s “Essays”

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-202
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Spiritual Quest ◽  
Guiding Principle ◽  
Sextus Empiricus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship

The article advances a hypothesis about the composition of Michel de Montaigne’s Essays. Specialists in the intellectual history of the Renaissance have long considered the relationship among Montaigne’s thematically heterogeneous thoughts, which unfold unpredictably and often seen to contradict each other. The waywardness of those reflections over the years was a way for Montaigne to construct a self-portrait. Spontaneity of thought is the essence of the person depicted and an experimental literary technique that was unprecedented in its time and has still not been surpassed. Montaigne often writes about freedom of reflection and regards it as an extremely important topic. There have been many attempts to interpret the haphazardness of the Essays as the guiding principle in their composition. According to one such interpretation, the spontaneous digressions and readiness to take up very different philosophical notions is a form of of varietas and distinguo, which Montaigne understood in the context of Renaissance philosophy. Another interpretation argues that the Essays employ the rhetorical techniques of Renaissance legal commentary. A third opinion regards the Essays as an example of sprezzatura, a calculated negligence that calls attention to the aesthetic character of Montaigne’s writing. The author of the article argues for a different interpretation that is based on the concept of idleness to which Montaigne assigned great significance. He had a keen appreciation of the role of otium in the culture of ancient Rome and regarded leisure as an inner spiritual quest for self-knowledge. According to Montaigne, idleness permits self-directedness, and it is an ideal form in which to practice the freedom of thought that brings about consistency in writing, living and reality, in all of which Montaigne finds one general property - complete inconstancy. Socratic self-knowledge, a skepticism derived from Pyrrho of Elis and Sextus Empiricus, and a rejection of the conventions of traditional rhetoric that was similar to Seneca’s critique of it were all brought to bear on the concept of idleness and made Montaigne’s intellectual and literary experimentation in the Essays possible.

Schopenhauer and the Paradox of the Sublime

2020 ◽  
pp. 237-255
Author(s):  
Bart Vandenabeele
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Aesthetic Object ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
The World ◽  
The Aesthetic

Schopenhauer explores the paradoxical nature of the aesthetic experience of the sublime in a richer way than his predecessors did by rightfully emphasizing the prominent role of the aesthetic object and the ultimately affirmative character of the pleasurable experience it offers. Unlike Kant, Schopenhauer’s doctrine of the sublime does not appeal to the superiority of human reason over nature but affirms the ultimately “superhuman” unity of the world, of which the human being is merely a puny fragment. The author focuses on Schopenhauer’s treatment of the experience of the sublime in nature and argues that Schopenhauer makes two distinct attempts to resolve the paradox of the sublime and that Schopenhauer’s second attempt, which has been neglected in the literature, establishes the sublime as a viable aesthetic concept with profound significance.

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