Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres (Sussex Studies in Culture and Communication)

Digital entertainment, from video games to simulation rides, is now a central feature of popular culture. Computer-based or digital technologies are supplanting the traditional production methods of television, film and video, provoking intense speculation about their impact on the character of art. Examining the digital imaging techniques across a wide range of media, including film, music video, computer games, theme parks and simulation rides, Visual Digital Culture explores the relationship between evolving digital technologies and existing media and considers the effect of these new image forms on the experience of visual culture. Andrew Darley first traces the development of digital computing from the 1960s and its use in the production of visual digital entertainment. Through case studies of films such as Toy Story , key pop videos such as Michael Jackson's Black or White , and computer games like Quake and Blade Runner , Andrew Darley asks whether digital visual forms mark a break with traditional emphases on story, representation, meaning and reading towards a focus on style, image performance and sensation. He questions the implications of digital culture for theories of spectatorship, suggesting that these new visual forms create new forms of spectatorship within mass culture. Book Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Contents......Page 5 List of illustrations......Page 10 Acknowledgements......Page 11 Introduction......Page 12 History......Page 20 A back story: realism, simulation, interaction......Page 22 Genealogy and tradition: mechanised spectacle as popular entertainment......Page 48 Shaping tradition: the contemporary context......Page 69 Aesthetics......Page 90 Simulation and hyperrealism: computer animation and TV advertisements......Page 92 The waning of narrative: new spectacle cinema and music video......Page 113 The digital image in 'the age of the signifier'......Page 135 Spectators......Page 156 Games and rides: surfing the image......Page 158 Surface play and spaces of consumption......Page 178 Active spectators?......Page 184 Exhibiting spectacle (and style)......Page 190 Conclusion......Page 202 Notes......Page 209 Bibliography......Page 218 Author index......Page 227 Subject index......Page 229 Visual Digital Culture considers the effect of new image technologies on the forms and experience of mass visual culture. Examining the digital imaging techniques employed in films such as Forrest Gump and Toy Story, and across a wide range of media including music video, computer games, theme parks and simulation rides, Andrew Darley argues that contemporary visual culture is radically different from traditional visual culture--marking a break with the emphasis on story, representation, meaning and reading, favoring instead a focus on style, image performance and sensation Visual Digital Culture considers the effect of new technologies on the forms and experience of mass visual culture. Examining the digital imaging techniques employed in films such as Forrest Gump and Toy Story, and across a wide range of media including music video, computer games, theme parks and simulation rides. Andrew Darley argues that contemporary visual culture is radically different from traditional visual culture -- marking a break with the emphasis on story, representation, meaning and reading, favoring instead a focus on style, image performance and sensation. A Back Story: Realism, Simulation, Interaction -- Genealogy And Tradition: Mechanised Spectacle As Popular Entertainment -- Shaping Tradition: The Contemporary Context -- Simulation And Hyperrealism: Computer Animation And Tv Advertisements -- The Waning Of Narrative: New Spectacle Cinema And Music Video -- The Digital Image In 'the Age Of The Signifier' -- Games And Rides: Surfing The Image -- Surface Play And Spaces Of Consumption. Andrew Darley. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 207-215) And Indexes. From a purely technological perspective the 1960s, a formative stage in the history of the modern computer, can be said to constitute the prehistorical era of the cultural forms and genres that I am concerned to explore here.