Open AccessSpectacular machinery and encrypted spectatorship
Author(s) -
Daniel Alberto Chavez Heras
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
a peer-reviewed journal about --
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2245-7755
DOI - 10.7146/aprja.v8i1.115423
Subject(s) - spectacle , generative grammar , magic (telescope) , materialism , movie theater , aesthetics , popular culture , consumption (sociology) , dimension (graph theory) , art , sociology , visual arts , computer science , epistemology , artificial intelligence , literature , philosophy , political science , mathematics , law , physics , quantum mechanics , pure mathematics
This paper argues certain types of contemporary computation have a spectacular dimension which is consumed today as magic. Using popular images created through Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) as a case study, I analyse the conditions of production and consumption of imagery generated through machine learning as a type of popular culture, I then compare this creative use of computing with magic shows and the cinema of attractions of the early twentieth century. This approach combines notions of digital cultural materialism with theories of early film spectatorship to suggest an emergent cultural trend: monstrative global computation as a form of spectacle.