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Presented by the IHC Modernist Studies Research Focus Group
Friday, February 7 / 3:30 P.M./ Free
2635 South Hall
William
Warner reads The Matrix as offering an allegory: the machines
who designed the Matrix simulation represent the dominant entertainment
system (Hollywood), and the human rebels of the Nebuchadnezzar represent
the libertarian hackers who assure the freedom of information, entertainment,
and the networks that carry them. This allegory enables the Wachowski
brothers a flattering self-interpretation of their role as edgy and
progressive filmmakers working within the "matrix" of Hollywood
film production. From the first reviews to the Academy awards, The
Matrix garnered special attention for the innovative slow motion
technology used in its climactic action sequences, a digital special
effects technology the Wachowski brothers dubbed “bullet-time.”
What is bullet time and how is it made to mean in The Matrix?
Bullet time is used sparingly at moments of climatic action; it gives
the spectator trained to inhabit photorealistic film a proximity to
action first visualized in comics and video games. What is the effect
of bullet time? Throughout the history of cinema, moving the viewer’s
camera eye view of the object—whether through zoom or reverse
zoom, through tracking shots or dolly shots, through hand-held cameras,
or by putting cameras in moving vehicles of every sort—intensifies
and varies the viewer’s experience of the moving object. In
a presentation on bullet time in The Matrix I will seek to
assess the several different ways special effects technology is used:
a) as producing a new phenomenology of speed; b) as a digitally enhanced
technology of inscription; and most grandly, c) as attempting a modernist
break with the codes of techno-realism native to Hollywood cinema,
but now surpassed by The Matrix.
William Warner's research and teaching is focused in two different
areas: the print media culture of the 18th century, with special attention
to the rise of the novel to be the dominant form of print entertainment;
and 20th century electronic media, with special attention on 20th
century cultural theory and film. He teaches in the Department of
English at UCSB and also serves as director of The Digital Cultures
Project, a group of 24 UC professors in the humanities, arts and social
sciences who study the broad implications for culture of the networked
computer. He is currently at work on a new project, entitled American
Networks: from the Continental Congress to the Internet.
This event is cosponsored by the IHC Modernist Studies Research Focus
Group and the Department of English.
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