Post Cinematic Affect

This book ponders the fate of the movies in a world of digital media, globalization, and massive financial flows.


Post-Cinematic Affect is about what it feels like to live in the affluent West in the early 21st century. Specifically, it explores the structure of feeling that is emerging today in tandem with new digital technologies, together with economic globalization and the financialization of more and more human activities. The 20th century was the age of film and television; these dominant media shaped and reflected our cultural sensibilities. In the 21st century, new digital media help to shape and reflect new forms of sensibility. Movies (moving image and sound works) continue to be made, but they have adopted new formal strategies, they are viewed under massively changed conditions, and they address their spectators in different ways than was the case in the 20th century. The book traces these changes, focusing on four recent moving-image works: Nick Hooker's music video for Grace Jones' song Corporate Cannibal; Olivier Assayas' movie Boarding Gate, starring Asia Argento; Richard Kelly's movie Southland Tales, featuring Justin Timberlake, Dwayne Johnson, and other pop culture celebrities; and Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor's Gamer.
REVIEWS & ENDORSEMENTS
  • A nimble and incisive explication of contemporary social shifts, and it makes concrete some dense and tricky theoretical terrain. For these reasons, it would be a useful addition to a graduate or advanced undergraduate course. ~ Greg Goldberg, Viral Book Review, Women's Quarterly Journal

  • Post-Cinematic Affect offers an important commentary on the condition of contemporary cinema overtaken by digitization.  Zero books aims at inspiring new paths of critical thought, and Post-Cinematic Affect succeeds in this.

    ~ Varpu Rantala, Aferimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Critism

  • Shaviro touches on multiple sources for his post-Marxist critique, including Spinoza, Fredric Jameson and Deleuze. His analysis identifies markers for our evolving relationship with new media, but no definite outcome. This book presents an excellent overview of the changing shape of cinema and our engagement with film. 

    ~ Emmet O'Cuana, http://abookadaytillicanstay.wordpress.com
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