The Squid Cinema From Hell :Kinoteuthis Infernalis and the Emergence of Chthulumedia
The Squid Cinema From Hell :Kinoteuthis Infernalis and the Emergence of Chthulumedia
paperback
Published:
23 June, 2020
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Description
More Details
| Type | Book |
|---|---|
| ISBN13 | 9781474463737 |
| ISBN10 | 1474463738 |
| Number Of Pages | 328 |
| Item Weight | 510 g |
| Publisher / Reseller | Edinburgh University Press |
| Format | paperback |
Media Reviews
An excellent framework for how to look at cinema through a cephalopodic lens without giving in to the fetishizing impulse that the authors see as endemic to many fields dealing in the hybridization of human/object/ animal theories […] this text is especially useful in establishing an imaginative map of how to approach or engage with media in the winter of 2022, as the globe is deluged, over and over, with world-historic events that destabilize reality. Put differently, this is perhaps the best time for a text that destabilizes how we think of squid, cinema, time, being, and erotics to help imagine futures in an increasingly unstable world. -- Genevieve Newman * Synoptique *
This is a must-read book. To say that it's standout, or stands out, would be an understatement. The deranged duo of Brown and Fleming, writing as though Deleuze and Guattari dreamed up a book on an ill-advised convertible road trip to Vegas, have produced some of the most thought-provoking, ground-breaking, mind-enhancing, occult-embracing, change-inspiring, octo-punny, scholarship on film and ecology ever. With examples ranging from Scarlett Johansson to The Handmaiden (inspired by thinkers from Spinoza to Haraway to Flusser), this innovative work at the convergence of the post-human and the post-cinematic challenges us to think (and feel) anew about our cephalopodic world. Is this, somehow, more than a book? Is it, in fact, an Arrival-style portal into another idea of what is possible for the future of academic writing in the Chthulucene? I hope so. One day we may end up living under water, and if so, this may be the survival manual we all need. Will its tentacles take hold of your mind? Even if the suckers don’t grab you, I guarantee you won’t be bored. -- David Martin-Jones, author of Cinema Against Doublethink (2018).
Why did we have to wait so long for a cephalopodic media archaeology? Finding the limber mollusc at the heart of twentieth century systems theory and neuroscience, capitalism and cinema, Brown and Fleming show that modern culture has long been embraced by a tentacular abstract line, immersed in an inky and vaporous haptic space. The authors’ eight-limbed persona writes with a giddily empathic style that will grip you, squeeze you, and leave you pleasantly limp. -- Laura U. Marks, Simon Fraser University, author of Hanan al-Cinema: Affections for the Moving Image (2015)
Inspired by Flusser and Bec’s Vampyrotheuthis Infernalis and many other sci-phy philosophy and posthuman media theory, this book takes us on a strange and yet serious ‘eight legged’ tour along the omnipresence of the cephalopod in cinema. Arguing that squids and octopuses are media, Brown and Fleming convincingly demonstrate that the tentacular and modular nature of digital media practices need more squid-thinking. Original and knowledgeable, and deliciously written this book presents provocative thoughts for (and from) the future of our media world and deserves highest recommendation. -- Patricia Pisters, University of Amsterdam, author of The Neuro-Image: A Deleuzian Film-philosophy of Digital Screen Culture (2012)
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Author's Bio
William Brown is a Senior Lecturer in Film at the University of Roehampton, London. He is the author of various books, including Non-Cinema: Global Digital Filmmaking and the Multitude (Bloomsbury, 2018) and Supercinema: Film-Philosophy for the Digital Age (Berghahn, 2013). He is also a maker of micro-budget films, including En Attendant Godard (2009), Selfie (2014) and This is Cinema (2019). David H. Fleming is a Senior Lecturer in the Communications, Media and Culture Division at the University of Stirling. He is the author of Unbecoming Cinema (2017) and co-author of Squid Cinema from Hell (2020, EUP) and Chinese Urban Shi-nema (2020). He is also co-editor of Cinema, Identities and Beyond (2009).