DIGITAL ALCHEMY: MATTER AND METAMORPHOSIS IN

258 Pages·2005·1.03 MB·English

DIGITAL ALCHEMY: MATTER AND METAMORPHOSIS IN CONTEMPORARY
DIGITAL ANIMATION AND INTERFACE DESIGN

by

Michelle Ramona Silva

BA, Bridgewater State College, 1992

MA, University of Massachusetts, 1996

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of

Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

University of Pittsburgh

2005
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UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

This dissertation was presented

by

Michelle Ramona Silva

It was defended on

April 15, 2005

and approved by

Donald Egolf, Associate Professor, Department of Communication, University of Pittsburgh

Valerie Krips, Associate Professor, English Department, Univeristy of Pittsburgh

John Lyne, Professor, Department of Communication, University of Pittsburgh

Dissertation Director: Jonathan Sterne, Associate Professor, Department of Art History and
Communication Studies, McGill University

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DIGITAL ALCHEMY: MATTER AND METAMORPHOSIS IN CONTEMPORARY
DIGITAL ANIMATION AND INTERFACE DESIGN

Michelle Ramona Silva, PhD

University of Pittsburgh, 2005

The recent proliferation of special effects in Hollywood film has ushered in an era of
digital transformation. Among scholars, digital technology is hailed as a revolutionary moment
in the history of communication and representation. Nevertheless, media scholars and cultural
historians have difficulty finding a language adequate to theorizing digital artifacts because they
are not just texts to be deciphered. Rather, digital media artifacts also invite critiques about the
status of reality because they resurrect ancient problems of embodiment and transcendence.
In contrast to scholarly approaches to digital technology, computer engineers, interface
designers, and special effects producers have invented a robust set of terms and phrases to
describe the practice of digital animation. In order to address this disconnect between producers
of new media and scholars of new media, I argue that the process of digital animation borrows
extensively from a set of preexisting terms describing materiality that were prominent for
centuries prior to the scientific revolution. Specifically, digital animators and interface designers
make use of the ancient science, art, and technological craft of alchemy. Both alchemy and
digital animation share several fundamental elements: both boast the power of being able to
transform one material, substance, or thing into a different material, substance, or thing. Both
seek to transcend the body and materiality but in the process, find that this elusive goal (realism
and gold) is forever receding onto the horizon.
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The introduction begins with a literature review of the field of digital media studies. It
identifies a gap in the field concerning disparate arguments about new media technology. On the
one hand, scholars argue that new technologies like cyberspace and digital technology enable
radical new forms of engagement with media on individual, social, and economic levels. At the
same time that media scholars assert that our current epoch is marked by a historical rupture,
many other researchers claim that new media are increasingly characterized by ancient
metaphysical problems like embodiment and transcendence. In subsequent chapters I investigate
this disparity.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.0 INTRODUCTION NEW MEDIA SCHOLARSHIP: EVOLUTION OR REVOLUTION?..1
2.0 CHAPTER 1: THE ELUSIVE LIFE FORCE: THE QUEST FOR PHOTOREALISM IN
THE COMPUTER GRAPHICS INDUSTRY......................................................................44
3.0 CHAPTER 2: THE DISAPPEARING MEDIUM: TRANSPARENCY, TANGIBILITY,
AND TRANSCENDENCE IN INTERFACE DESIGN.......................................................95
4.0 CHAPTER 3 LIVING METALS: TECHCHINQUES OF TRANSMUTATION IN THE
PARACELSIAN CORPUS................................................................................................135
5.0 CHAPTER 4 DIGITAL ALCHEMY: THE SECRET KINSHIP OF ANCIENT AND
MODERN TECHNIQUES OF TRANSFORMATION.....................................................183
6.0 CONCLUSION A SPARK OF RECOGNITION: REFLECTIONS AND
PROVOCATIONS..............................................................................................................225
7.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY...............................................................................................................231

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1.0 INTRODUCTION
NEW MEDIA SCHOLARSHIP: EVOLUTION OR REVOLUTION?

For every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as
one of it own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably.1
Media technologies are often hailed by scholars in terms of their novelty. In fact, “new media
technology” designates an area of specialty within the field of communication that includes
research on the impact of new technology on global politics, literacy, media policy, identity,
film, education, and art. Yet at the same time that scholars identify radical differences in the
media of today compared to that of yesterday, many approaches associate new media technology
with the disembodied voices of the dead and magical transformation. These scholars make larger
claims about the history of storage media, showing that some of the issues surrounding new
media are very old indeed.
Contemporary approaches to media technologies fall into roughly four categories. The
first group examines the social, political, and economic context in which new media are
positioned, how they shape and in turn, are shaped by those contexts. The second group argues
that new media technologies reconfigure cultural relations to those technologies in radical new
ways and are therefore, historically discontinuous with their forbears. The third group argues for
historical continuity between media of the past and present. And the last group examines the
metaphysical status of new media technology. These scholars argue that media technology, both
past and present, consistently raise philosophical issues concerning reality and representation,

1 Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt
(New York: Schocken Books, 1955).
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embodiment and transcendence. New media forms likewise conjure ancient speculations
concerning death, decay, obsolescence, and attempts to artificially extend or augment human life.
It is important to note however, that I articulate this topology as a convenient entry point into the
scholarly discourse surrounding digital media and there is, in reality, significant overlap between
each category within the work of individual authors. For example, when confronting the issue of
cyberspace and identity, a scholar may simultaneously adopt a contextual position by focusing
on the social and economic conditions of users and a historically discontinuous position by
arguing that new media rearticulate identity in radical new ways.
Anne Balsamo, for example, argues that new media are radically contextual in terms of
the uses and meanings that we garner from them. In her exploration of the cultural figure of the
cyborg she shows that the body itself is inscribed by the mechanisms and media of cultural
production. In addition, she argues that due to an increasing collapse between the physical body
and technological modifications, notions of identity and subjectivity have undergone a radical
break with past understandings of embodiment.2 Despite the fact that many scholars of new
media combine a number of theoretical and methodological positions, it is logically inconsistent
for a scholar to identify with the metaphysics camp and argue for radical historical rupture at the
same time. However, some research in new media technology maintains an untenable
relationship between revolutionary change and historical continuity. While both of these
positions are appropriate ways to characterize new media, metaphysical speculations that are
inherently at odds with historical rupture arguments usually function as a common ground in
scholarship that is otherwise divergent. In short, the consistency with which authors of differing
methodological positions identify themes of embodiment and transcendence as key issues in the

2 Anne Balsamo, Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women (Durham: Duke University Press,
1999).
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study of new media technologies is remarkable enough to merit a closer examination. Whether
scholarly, popular, or technical in tone, issues concerning embodiment, transcendence, and death
are acknowledged to be central to thinking about media technology across the board. This
consistency marks the strand of inquiry that I will take up in this dissertation.
The following will examine these four positions in order to situate this work within a
scholarly discourse concerning the historical, social, and cultural implications of new media
technologies. I will highlight the arguments made in the various orientations toward new media
and offer a critique as a means of staking out my own position as it will unfold in this
dissertation. I will end with a statement of the problem with these contemporary approaches and
a summary of how this dissertation will address that problem, chapter by chapter.
A cursory inspection of scholarship in media technology reveals that a great deal of work
in this area is devoted to the individual, social, political, economic, and even industrial
consequences of the Internet, virtual reality, and other forms of new media. Many scholars focus
on the impact of new media on global politics and examine the way in which countries like
China, Canada, and Brazil integrate new technologies within their social and economics systems,
particularly in terms of the issues of distribution and accessibility of technologies across
economic and cultural boundaries.3 Among the most prominent of new media studies, are those
that tackle social, political, and economic consequences of digital technology within the United

3,Jabbar Al-Obaidi, “Communication and the Culture of Democracy: Global Media and Promotion of Democracy in
the Middle East,” International Journal of Instructional Media 30, no. 1 (2003), Lance W. Bennett,
“Communicating Global Activism,” Information Communication & Society 6, no. 2 (2003), Alison A. Carr-
Chellman, “China's Future with Distance Education: Rhetoric and Realities,” Information Communication & Society
3, no. 3 (2000), Matthew David, and Jamieson Kirkhope, “New Digital Technologies: Privacy/Property,
Globalization, and Law,” Perspectives on Global Development & Technology 3, no. 4 (2004), Setareh Ghaffari-
Farhangi, “The Era of Global Communication as Perceived by Muslims,” International Journal for Communication
Studies 60, no. 4 (1998), Robert Hassan, “Globalization: Information Technology and Culture within the Space
Economy of Late Capitalism,” Information Communication & Society 2, no. 3 (1999), Christopher R. Hughes,
“China and the Globalization of Icts: Implications for International Relations,” New Media & Society 4, no. 2
(2002), Aphra Kerr, “Revisiting Globalisation through the Movie and Digital Games Industries,” Convergence: The
Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 9, no. 1 (2003), Gholam Khiabany, “Globalization and the
Internet: Myths and Realities,” Trends in Communication 11, no. 2 (2003).
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States. For instance, many authors examine the economics and politics of Internet accessibility
issues.4 Domestic investigations of government and economic policies concerning the
development and distribution of digital technology frequently focus on who has the economic
and cultural resources to make use of new media like the Internet and digital cable. Related to
these treatments of policy and access, is of course the problem of free speech and how digital
technologies are altering public participation in democracy. Therefore, many scholars of new
media are particularly concerned about the impact that digital publishing has on conventional
journalistic practices.5 Still others within the ‘social impact’ group include those interested in the
consequences of new media on education, such as distance learning.6 Many scholars are
interested in examining the ways in which communication technologies like the Internet are
reconfiguring traditional understandings of identity.7 At stake here is the question of whether or
not ‘cyberspace’ exerts a liberating influence on society as it enables new forms of identity

4 Kirsten Foot, and Steven Schneider, “The Web as an Object of Study,” New Media & Society 6, no. 1 (2004),
Eszter Hargittai, “Internet Access and Use in Context,” New Media & Society 6, no. 1 (2004), Cecelia Merkel Mehra
Bharat, and Ann Peterson Biship, “The Internet for Empowerment of Minority and Marginalized Users,” New Media
& Society 6, no. 6 (2004), Neil Selwyn, “Reconsidering Political and Popular Understandings of the Digital Divide,”
New Media & Society 6, no. 3 (2004), Gillian Youngs, “The Political Economy of Time in the Internet Era: Feminist
Perspectives and Challenges,” Information Communication & Society 4, no. 1 (2001).
5 Kirsten Foot, and Steven Schneider, “The Web as an Object of Study,” New Media & Society 6, no. 1 (2004),
Eszter Hargittai, “Internet Access and Use in Context,” New Media & Society 6, no. 1 (2004), Cecelia Merkel Mehra
Bharat, and Ann Peterson Biship, “The Internet for Empowerment of Minority and Marginalized Users,” New Media
& Society 6, no. 6 (2004), Neil Selwyn, “Reconsidering Political and Popular Understandings of the Digital Divide,”
New Media & Society 6, no. 3 (2004), Gillian Youngs, “The Political Economy of Time in the Internet Era: Feminist
Perspectives and Challenges,” Information Communication & Society 4, no. 1 (2001).
6 Chika Anyanwu, “Myth and Realities of New Media Technology,” Television & News Media 4, no. 4 (2003),
Diana Joseph, and Denise C. Nacu, “Designing Interesting Learning Environments When the Medium Isn't
Enough,” Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 9, no. 2 (2003), Scott B. Waltz,
“Everything New Is Old Again: Technology and the Mistaken Future,” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society
23, no. 5 (2003).
7 Aaron Ben-Ze'ev, “Flirting on and Offline,” Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
10, no. 1 (2004), Neil Charness, and Patricia Holly, “The New Media and Older Adults: Usable and Useful?”
American Behavioral Scientist 48, no. 4 (2004), Jonathan James, and Lillie McCreadie, “Cyberporn, Sexuality, and
the Net Apparatus,” Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 10, no. 1 (2004), Mehra
Bharat, “The Internet for Empowerment of Minority and Marginalized Users,” Peggy S. Meszaros, “The Wired
Family: Living Digitally in the Postinformation Age,” American Behavioral Scientist 48, no. 4 (2004), Rogers A.
Richard, ““Is This a Great Time or What?” Information Technology and Erasure of Difference,” World
Communication 28, no. 4 (1999), Belinda Smaill, “Online Personals and Narratives of Self: Australia's Rsvp,”
Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 10, no. 1 (2004), T.L. Taylor, “Multiple
Pleasures,” Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 9, no. 1 (2003).
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construction, or whether it further oppresses and alienates users along familiar and hence,
historically continuous lines of race, sexual preference, class, and gender. Robert Markley
argues, for instance, that “cyberspace, then, can never separate itself from the politics of
representation precisely because it is a projection of the conflicts of class, gender, and race that
technology both encodes and seeks to erase.”8 Rather than escaping or transcending the fallen
world of human prejudice and inequity, Markley rightly points out that the Internet realizes these
same social problems in yet another form. This position is prominent among media scholars who
argue that media technologies cannot be disengaged from the social context no matter how much
some technologies may promise to lift us out of the turmoil of real life through the power of pure
information.
Although widely divergent in their objects of critique as well as their methodology, all of
the aforementioned approaches speculate about the impact of communication technology on the
human condition. Therefore, I situate these approaches under the general category of contextual
media studies since they are less concerned with the production of material artifacts than they are
with conditions in which these objects emerge and how, in turn, they actively reshape social
conditions for better or for worse.
A good example of a study that examines the contextual forces of economics, politics,
and industry is Digital Capitalism by Dan Schiller.9 In a historically discontinuous
argumentative vein, Schiller theorizes the harmful economic consequences of the inequitable
deployment of the Internet. He is committed to an analysis of media technology in terms of
familiar, yet ever more sinister market forces that shape it. He states that:

8 Robert Markley, “Introduction: History, Theory and Virtual Reality,” in Virtual Realities and Their Discontents.,
ed. Robert Markley (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
9 Dan Schiller, Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999).
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