On behalf of the Department of British Culture at the Institute of English Studies, we would like to invite your for the last talk in the New Media in Contemporary Culture series in the winter edition 2021/2022.

On January 20, our guest will be Prof. Paweł Frelik (American Studies Center, UW).

Paweł Frelik is Associate Professor and the Leader of Speculative Texts and Media Research Group at the American Studies Center, University of Warsaw. He serves on the boards of Science Fiction Studies, Extrapolation, and Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, and is the co-editor of the New Dimensions in Science Fiction book series at the University of Wales Press. In 2017, he was the first non-Anglophone recipient of the Thomas D. Clareson Award presented for outstanding service to the field of science fiction studies.

The title of his talk is “Frenzy of the Invisible: Screenporn and Biopower in Contemporary Audiovisual Culture”
Abstract: Contemporary audiovisual production across genres is awash in screens: monitors, displays, interfaces, and holograms. Although they are often narratively superfluous, they function as “screenporn”: affective opportunities to demonstrate the spectacular production capacities of digital infrastructure as well as economical replacements of live-action presentation. Attractive as they are, these displays also surreptitiously promulgate a range of insidious ideological positions, major among which are the belief in the power of visualization of even viciously complex phenomena (e.g., meteorological simulations) and the will to control biological and psychological realities of both humans and other lifeforms. As such, screenporn is thus a tool of biopower wrapped in flashy entertainment.

Feel free to disseminate widely!

Topic: Pawel Frelik New Media lecture
Time: Jan 20, 2022 04:00 PM Warsaw

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