Chinese Urban Shi-nema

This book dives into the mise-en-scène of contemporary China to explore the becoming cinema of Chinese cities, societies, and subjectivities. Set in the wake of China's radical and rapid period of urbanization and infrastructural transformation, and situating itself in the processual city of Ningbo, the book combines empirical, ficto-critical, and philosophical methods to generate a dynamic account of everyday life as new forms of consumer culture bed in. Harnessing a Realist approach that allows for different scales of analysis, the book zooms in on five architectural assemblages including: surreal real estate showrooms; a fragmented history museum; China's first and best Sino-foreign university; a new Old town; and weird gamified any-now(here)-spaces. Together these modern arrangements and machines for living cast light upon the broader picture sweeping up greater China.

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Argues China is 'where the action is' in terms of the future of capitalism and provides a series of detailed soundings of contemporary culture Sheds fresh cinematic light on surreal urban simulations characteristic of postsocialist Chinese cities Blends empirical data, fictocritical methods, 4E Psychogeography, film-philosophy and other interdisciplinary methods to create a different take on global media/urban theory Engineers an original encounter between the Chinese concept of Shi (?) and Western theories of urbanism, cinema and contemporary capitalism Shows that cinematicity of capital in China develops in tandem with a becoming-image and becoming-cinema of culture Develops a Realist fractal model that allows for Vertigenous scale shifts of analysis from the nation state down to individual embodied (trans)actions

Autorentext
David H. Fleming is Senior Lecturer in the Communication, Media and Culture division at the University of Stirling, Scotland. He is co-author of The Squid Cinema from Hell: Kinoteuthis Infernalis and the Emergence of Chthulhumedia with William Brown (2020), and the author of Unbecoming Cinema (2017). Simon Harrison is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong. He is author of The Impulse to Gesture: Where Language, Minds, and Bodies Intersect (2018).

Klappentext

This book dives into the mise-en-scène of contemporary China to explore the "becoming cinema" of Chinese cities, societies, and subjectivities. Set in the wake of China's radical and rapid period of urbanization and infrastructural transformation, and situating itself in the processual city of Ningbo, the book combines empirical, ficto-critical, and philosophical methods to generate a dynamic account of everyday life as new forms of consumer culture bed in. Harnessing a Realist approach that allows for different scales of analysis, the book zooms in on five architectural assemblages including: surreal real estate showrooms; a fragmented history museum; China's "first and best" Sino-foreign university; a new "Old town"; and weird gamified "any-now(here)-spaces." Together these modern arrangements and machines for living cast light upon the broader picture sweeping up greater China.

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- 2. Shi-Story and Theory.- 3. Commercial Overground Shi-Nema: Some Notes onCinematicity and Its Propensity for Selling Dream (Un) Real Estate in Contemporary China.- 4. In-dependent Art Shi-Nema: Decomposing the Main Melody via Monu-mental Time-Images.- 5. Transnational Sci-Fi Shi-nema: Or, Diary Notes from Westworld Regarding Neoliberal Dulosis, Academic Automatons and the Franchised Post-historical University in the Era of Global Excellence.- 6. Shi-Nematic Games (Casino Capitalism).- 7. Epilogue: Disneyfied Dreamwork Shinema-Tracing a New "Old" Path Through the Inauthentic "Traditional.