Hypermodernity and Visuality

245 Pages·2019·2.776 MB·English

by  Peter R. Sedgwick

Hypermodernity
and Visuality
Critical Perspectives on Theory, Culture and Politics
Critical Perspectives on Theory, Culture and Politics is an interdisciplinary series, devel-
oped in partnership with the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory, which is based in
the School of English, Communication and Philosophy at Cardiff University, UK. The
series focuses on innovative research produced at the interface between critical theory
and cultural studies. In recent years much work in cultural studies has increasingly
moved away from directly critical-theoretical concerns. One of the aims of this series is
to foster a renewed dialogue between cultural studies and critical and cultural theory in
its rich, multiple dimensions.
Series editors:
Glenn Jordan, Visiting Research Fellow, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural
Studies, Cardiff University. Former Director of Butetown History & Arts Centre.
Laurent Milesi, Reader in English, Communication and Philosophy and Chair of the
Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory, Cardiff University.
Radhika Mohanram, Professor of English and Critical and Cultural Theory,
Cardiff University.
Chris Norris, Distinguished Research Professor, Cardiff University.
Chris Weedon, Professor Emerita and Honorary Chair, Centre for Critical and Cultural
Theory, Cardiff University.
Titles in the series:
Culture Control Critique: Allegories of Reading the Present, Frida Beckman
Prometheanism: Technology, Digital Culture and Human Obsolescence, Günther
Anders and Christopher John Müller, translated by Christopher John Müller
Creole in the Archive: Imagery, Presence and the Location of the Caribbean Figure,
Roshini Kempadoo
The Attention Economy: Labour, Time, and Power in Cognitive Capitalism, Claudio Celis
Performative Contradiction and the Romanian Revolution, Jolan Bogdan
Chinese Subjectivities and the Beijing Olympics, Gladys Pak Lei Chong
The Extreme in Contemporary Culture: States of Vulnerability, Pramod K. Nayar
Superpositions: Laruelle and the Humanities, edited by Rocco Gangle and Julius Greve
Credo Credit Crisis: Speculations on Faith and Money, edited by Laurent Milesi,
Christopher John Müller and Aidan Tynan
Materialities of Sex in a Time of HIV: The Promise of Vaginal Microbicides, Annette-
Carina van der Zaag
From Shared Life to Co-Resistance in Historic Palestine, Marcelo Svirsky and Ronnen
Ben-Arie
Affective Connections: Towards a New Materialist Politics of Sympathy, Dorota Golańska
Homemaking: Radical Nostalgia and the Construction of a South Asian Diaspora,
Anindya Raychaudhuri
Hypermodernity and Visuality, by Peter R. Sedgwick
Partitions and Their Afterlives: Violence, Memories, Living, edited by Radhika
Mohanram and Anindya Raychaudhuri (forthcoming)
Contested Borders: Queer Politics and Cultural Translation in Contemporary
Francophone Writing from the Maghreb, William J. Spurlin (forthcoming)
Hypermodernity
and Visuality
Peter R. Sedgwick
Poems by
Damian Walford Davies
London • New York
Published by Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd
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Copyright © 2019 by Peter R. Sedgwick
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any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who
may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: HB 978-1-78660-490-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sedgwick, Peter R., author. | Davies, Damian Walford, writer of
supplementary textual content.
Title: Hypermodernity and visuality / by Peter R. Sedgwick ; poems by Damian
Walford Davies.
Description: London : Rowman & Littlefield International, [2019] | Series:
Critical perspectives on theory, culture and politics | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018059078 (print) | LCCN 2018058277 (ebook) | ISBN
9781786604903 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781786604910 (Electronic)
Subjects: LCSH: Technology—Social aspects. | Technological
Innovations—Philosophy.
Classification: LCC T14.5 .S396 2019 (ebook) | LCC T14.5 (print) | DDC
303.48/3—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018059078
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
Er cof am Bryan Martin Davies
Prifardd

Contents
Acknowledgements xi
Preface xiii
Introduction 1
PART 1: CONFLICT IN SIGHT: THE BUNKER,
HYPERMODERNIZING VISION, AND ARCHAIC DEFENSIVE
SPACE (APOLLONIAN, DIONYSIAN, SOCRATIC) 47
Image: A Bunker 47
Poem: Littoral 48
Reflection: A figure stands on a decaying defensive bunker . . . 48
Section 1: Virilio and the Bunker 49
Section 2: Urban Bunker Space, Dromology 58
Section 3: Terror, Urban Space, Hypermodern Visuality 62
Section 4: From Archaic Visuality to Technological Rationality—
Apollonian, Dionysian, Socratic 68
Section 5: Prelude to Part 2 81
Image: Dissolving Bunker 83
Image: Dissolved Bunker 83
PART 2: FOUR CHAPTER-LENGTH SKIRMISHES
WITH HYPERMODERN EYES 95
1 Five Short Pieces on Screens 97
Image: Mona Lisa 97
Poem: Ikon 98
Reflection: An image always shows a world . . . 98
vii
viii Contents
Section 1: Memory-Prosthesis 99
Image: Caught in the Act 101
Image: Mona Lisa 2 102
Section 2: (W)ho(l)ly secular? 102
Image: Winged Victory of Samothrace 104
Section 3: Who Are We? 105
Section 4: So, ‘Who Are We?’ 109
Section 5: Down in the Mud . . . 113
2 17 Seconds 117
Image: Concourse of the Musée d’Orsay 117
Poem: La Gare 118
Reflection: Two seconds or seventeen? . . . 118
Section 1: Seventeen Seconds 119
Section 2: Aboriginal Mis-encounter 124
Section 3: Seeing the Enigma 130
Section 4: Old Beginnings in Modernity 134
Section 5: The Specificity of Non-place 136
Image: Concourse of the Musée d’Orsay (Close-Up) 138
Image: Bodily Movement in the Gallery (Musée d’Orsay) 139
Image: Look Out of the Gallery Window 141
3 Pixel Auto-biography Pixel Auto-mythology 147
Image: Tree of Death 147
Poem: Digital Sin 148
Reflection: What price memory? . . . 148
Section 1: Puncturing Light 149
Section 2: Analogue Innocence 155
Image: Scarred 35mm Frame 157
Section 3: Digital’s In 158
Image: Observers 163
4 Speed of Tragedy . . . 167
Image: Fixation 167
Poem: Speed Camera 168
Reflection: The greater the speed the less clear things become . . . 168
Section 1: Speeding Past Oedipus? 168
Section 2: ‘Who of Us Here Is Oedipus? Who Sphinx?’ 176
Section 3: Oedipus Fast and Slow 182
Section 4: Speed of Tragedy 186
Contents ix
Section 5: ‘Lucky as a Knife’? 188
Image: Eyeball 191
Image: Enclosed Sky 192
Image: Overlooked Body 193
Poem: X-Ray 193
Reflection: A machinic enclosure . . . 193
Appendix: Conversation 201
Image: Handprints on a Shed Door 201
Bibliography 205
Index 217
About the Author and Poet 223