Arguing that today's viewers move through a character's brain instead of looking through his or her eyes or mental landscape, this book approaches twenty-first-century globalized cinema through the concept of the "neuro-image." Pisters explains why this concept has emerged now, and she elaborates its threefold nature through research from three domains--Deleuzian (schizoanalytic) philosophy, digital networked screen culture, and neuroscientific research. These domains return in the book's tripartite structure. Part One, on the brain as "neuroscreen," suggests rich connections between film theory, mental illness, and cognitive neuroscience. Part Two explores neuro-images from a philosophical perspective, paying close attention to their ontological, epistemological, and aesthetic dimensions. Political and ethical aspects of the neuro-image are discussed in Part Three. Topics covered along the way include the omnipresence of surveillance, the blurring of the false and the real and the affective powers of the neo-baroque, and the use of neuro-images in politics, historical memory, and war.

Author: Patricia Pisters
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 07/11/2012
Series: Cultural Memory in the Present
Pages: 392
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780804781367

About the Author
Patricia Pisters is Professor of Media Culture and Film Studies and Chair of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Her publications include The Matrix of Visual Culture: Working with Deleuze in Film Theory (Stanford, 2003).