The recent proliferation of special effects in Hollywood film has ushered in an era of digital transformation. Among scholars, digital technology is hailed as a revolutionary moment in the history of communication and representation. Nevertheless, media scholars and cultural historians have difficulty finding a language adequate to theorizing digital artifacts because they are not just texts to be deciphered. Rather, digital media artifacts also invite critiques about the status of reality because they resurrect ancient problems of embodiment and transcendence.
In contrast to scholarly approaches to digital technology, computer engineers, interface designers, and special effects producers have invented a robust set of terms and phrases to describe the practice of digital animation. In order to address this disconnect between producers of new media and scholars of new media, I argue that the process of digital animation borrows extensively from a set of preexisting terms describing materiality that were prominent for centuries prior to the scientific revolution. Specifically, digital animators and interface designers make use of the ancient science, art, and technological craft of alchemy. Both alchemy and digital animation share several fundamental elements: both boast the power of being able to transform one material, substance, or thing into a different material, substance, or thing. Both seek to transcend the body and materiality but in the process, find that this elusive goal (realism and gold) is forever receding onto the horizon.
The introduction begins with a literature review of the field of digital media studies. It identifies a gap in the field concerning disparate arguments about new media technology. On the one hand, scholars argue that new technologies like cyberspace and digital technology enable radical new forms of engagement with media on individual, social, and economic levels. At the same time that media scholars assert that our current epoch is marked by a historical rupture, many other researchers claim that new media are increasingly characterized by ancient metaphysical problems like embodiment and transcendence. In subsequent chapters I investigate this disparity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12092005-115035 |
| Date | 07 July 2006 |
| Creators | Silva, Michelle Ramona |
| Contributors | Donald Egolf, Valerie Krips, Jonathan Sterne, John Lyne |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12092005-115035/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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