The Spectacle of the Real: From Hollywood to ‘Reality’ TV and Beyond
Brunel University, London, 25-26 January 2003
Hollywood special effects offer spectacular creations or re-creations
that make claims to our attention on the grounds of their
‘incredible-seeming reality’. They can appear both ‘incredible’ and
‘real’, their appeal based on their ability to ‘convince’ - to appear real
in terms such as detail and texture - and on their status as fabricated
spectacle, to be admired as such. At a seemingly very different end of
the audio-visual media spectrum, ‘reality’ television offers the
spectacle of, supposedly, the ‘real’ itself, a ‘reality’ that ranges
from the banality of the quotidian to intense interpersonal engagements
(two extremes experienced in Big Brother, for example). The two also
overlap, however, nowhere more clearly and jarringly than in the
ultimate ‘spectacle of the real’, the destruction of the World Trade
Center in New York, live television coverage of which evoked constant
comparison with big-screen fictional images.
Impressions of the ‘real’ or the ‘authentic’ (or the authentic-seeming)
are valued as forms of media spectacle in a number of other contemporary
media forms. Other examples include the ‘uncanny’ verisimilitude of the
latest developments in computer-generated animation displayed in films
such as Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) and Shrek (2001), and
the recent tendency to include scenes of real sexual intercourse in more
‘legitimate’ forms of cinema (even if this has been largely confined to
the‘continental art film’ sector).
The aim of this conference is to explore some of the issues emerging
from this fascination with both the impression of ‘reality’ and the fact
that it is often presented and experienced as a form of spectacle; or,
alternatively, the fascination with the spectacular and the fact that it
is often considered in terms of its apparent ‘realism’. Broad questions
we wish to explore through the examination of a wide range of textual
material concern the nature and different forms of both ‘spectacle’ and
of ‘the real’ (along with ‘reality’, ‘realism’ and ‘authenticity’); and,
especially, the points of conjuncture between the two. If the term
‘spectacle’ tends to orient us towards the big-budget Hollywood
productions, for example, we also wish to consider its wider resonances.
How, for instance, are heightened moments of spectacle, such as those
found in overtly visible special effects sequences, marked off
differently from the spectacle of audio-visual production more
generally? Other potential questions to be addressed include issues of
consumption: how do different forms of spectacle mobilize (or seek to
mobilize) different kinds of spectatorship and what kinds of pleasures or
other engagements do they entail? What are the similarities and differences
between Hollywood spectacle and that produced in other geo-cultural
contexts. And if ‘spectacle’ ranges across forms as diverse as the
Hollywood blockbuster, videogames and ‘reality’ TV, what about more
overtly political interventions that seek to question or reject the
practices of the commercial mainstream. In this context, the term
‘spectacle’ evokes the broader social critiques of consumer capitalism
associated with figures such as Guy Debord or Walter Benjamin and the
‘anti-spectacular’ strategies pursued by elements of the political
avant-garde.
Proposals for papers are invited across this range of issues, in film,
television and new media. Please send proposals of 350-400 words to
Geoff King, Film and TV Studies, Lecture Centre, Brunel University,
Cleveland Road, Uxbridge UB8 3PH or e-mail to [log in to unmask]
by 30th June, 2002.
Dr Geoff King
Course Director
Film and TV Studies
Performing Arts
Brunel University, UK
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