Discorrelated Images

In Discorrelated Images, Shane Denson examines the ways in which computer-generated digital images displace and transform the traditional spatial and temporal relationships that viewers had with conventional analog forms of cinema. Denson analyzes works ranging from the Transformers series and Blade Runner 2049 to videogames and multimedia installations to show how what he calls discorrelated images—images that do not correlate with the abilities and limits of human perception—produce new subjectivities, affects, and potentials for perception and action. Denson's theorization suggests that new media theory and its focus on technological development must now be inseparable from film and cinema theory. But there's more at stake in understanding discorrelated images, Denson contends, than just a reshaping of cinema, the development of new technical imaging processes, and evolution of film and media studies: they herald a transformation of subjectivity itself and are essential to our ability to comprehend nonhuman agency.

Shane Denson is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Stanford University and author of Postnaturalism: Frankenstein, Film, and the Anthropotechnical Interface.