Screen Violence from Settler Colonialism to Cognitive Capitalism: Westworld and the Player Piano.
While the HBO show Westworld (2016-present, created by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan) has gained much critical attention for its byzantine plotting and philosophical conundrums, the present discussion focuses instead on the basic premise on which the titular park operates, namely that the algorithms t...
| Published in: | Afterimage Vol. 49; no. 3; pp. 23 - 46 |
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| Format: | Article |
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University of California Press
Sep2022
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=159592463&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 159592463 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 03007472 ATF jtl: Afterimage issn: 03007472 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2022 vid: 49 iid: 3 pid: 414 pub: University of California Press artinfo: ui: 159592463 10.1525/aft.2022.49.3.23 ppf: 23 ppct: 23 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 1.7MB tig: atl: Screen Violence from Settler Colonialism to Cognitive Capitalism: Westworld and the Player Piano. aug: au: GUSTAFSSON, HENRIK affil: Professor of film, media, and visual culture in the Department of Media and Documentation Science at the Arctic University of Norway su: Westworld (TV program) Imperialism Capitalism Joy, Lisa Nolan, Jonathan sug: subj: Westworld (TV program) Imperialism Capitalism Joy, Lisa Nolan, Jonathan keyword: animation automation Hans Belting living image media archaeology player piano surveillance capitalism Westworld William Gaddis ab: While the HBO show Westworld (2016-present, created by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan) has gained much critical attention for its byzantine plotting and philosophical conundrums, the present discussion focuses instead on the basic premise on which the titular park operates, namely that the algorithms that govern human behavior can be disclosed by studying how human beings behave toward image beings. Under the guise of a tactile experience of a make-believe past, the park attractions clandestinely function as a large behavioral sensor, extracting actionable data from the guests who reveal their inner drives when interacting with the host environment. Taking its cue from the opening titles of the first season, the argument pivots on the master trope of the series: the machine-readable scroll of perforated paper that commands the automated performance of the player piano. This motif is examined through a double-pronged approach that aligns the anthropology of images developed by Hans Belting, which understands the relation between humans and images as the interactions between "hosts" and "guests," with the archaeology of media and its dominant concern to uncover the prehistory of the automated control systems of the computer age. While Westworld proffers a timely allegory of biopolitical capture along the digital frontier, the show ultimately testifies to the failure to constructively engage with the precarious relation between hosts and guests that to an equal extent defines our contemporary moment. The initial problem raised by Westworld, the ethics of killing virtual beings, thus gives rise to a broader historical inquiry that concerns the inability of human societies to face the past and deal with the images they inherit. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Afterimage is the property of University of California Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Afterimage holder: University of California Press dt: @attributes: year: 2022 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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