Time Out of Joint:tag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-812489959698982512013-02-13T11:35:09-07:00a notebook on cinema, hyperreality, and longing . . .TypePadRubio, Water, and the House of Cardstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef017d410903cc970c2013-02-13T11:35:09-07:002013-02-13T11:38:19-07:00 In an age of hyperreality and manufactured pseudo-events, how can the Republican dream boy botch such a brief moment in the sun? Doesn't he know the Frank Underwood principle? That to control information is the power to create and shape reality, and when you abdicate that control, someone else usurps the storytelling power from you—to tell it about you.Reno Laurothe physicality of books (and cinema) part 1tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef01543385a88a970c2011-07-07T08:04:43-07:002011-07-07T08:04:43-07:00Of course, one of the dreams of technology is in unlocking the "poetry" of physicality. In our own time think of the endless quest for artificial intelligence and the fascination with Human +. But the cost seems to be that we are required to give up or limit the depths of humanity in order to reach that goal. Technology demands this abdication. Tools are not benign, they change us.Reno LauroThe HDR Chapeltag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef0147e3036f54970b2011-03-05T08:51:23-07:002011-03-05T08:51:23-07:00The aesthetics of gaming, virtual reality, and second life are beginning to have their way with reality. My particular concern is with cinematic 'representations' of everyday life at the moment. One very popular photographic technique called HDR (High-Dynamic-Range imagining) attempts to plasticize and pixelize reality in an attempt to make...Reno LauroHarvard Researchers Monitor Violence in Sudan | The Harvard Crimsontag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef0148c765a28e970c2011-01-07T13:49:35-07:002011-01-07T13:49:35-07:00A team of researchers from Harvard University is collaborating with Google and a humanitarian group led by George Clooney to implement a monitoring system that will watch for violence in southern Sudan. The Satellite Sentinel Project—a joint effort by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, the Enough Project, the U.N.’s Operational Satellite...Reno LauroThe Christmas movie: Die Hard (1988) part 3tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef0147e11267fd970b2011-01-05T23:48:39-07:002011-01-05T23:51:54-07:00John McClane is about to crawl and fight his way through the bowels of a strange new world to save his family's Christmas from late-modern hypercapitalism. But with every move he makes the structures of power, both internal and external, are standing in his way. A Hyperreal City Held Hostage:...Reno Lauroculture, history, and graphstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef0148c71c009b970c2010-12-27T23:59:38-07:002010-12-28T00:09:45-07:00a not so precise look at the problem, as i see it, via google's nifty Ngram viewer. Anyone who has read The Virgin and the Dynamo by Henry Adams shouldn't be surprised by the following trends: hidden in the vine, however, is a mode of resistance to the folly of...Reno LauroThe Christmas movie: Die Hard (1988) part 2tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef0148c70245d5970c2010-12-27T10:22:56-07:002013-02-25T07:53:28-07:00John McClane is a stranger in a strange land. He has traveled into a new reality, the reality of late-capitalist globalism, in an attempt to rescue his family (and Christmas) from a culture of greed and excess. Mr. Takagi has just informed the guests that, "this has been one of...Reno LauroThe Christmas movie: Die Hard (1988) part 1tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef0147e0db17ed970b2010-12-22T12:46:34-07:002013-02-25T07:57:05-07:00This post might as well be filed under whimsy, but I'm including it in my Christmas movie list because I just can't shake it, and I don't know why. I invite you to find out with me ... Die Hard (1988) might very well be the finest American action film...Reno LauroThe coming wave of augmented realitytag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef0147e0edaccc970b2010-12-22T07:52:24-07:002010-12-22T07:56:52-07:00Forrester Research this week predicted an impending boom in the field of "augmented reality." Soon, we won't even need to put that term in quotation marks. It will be an everyday expression. Augmented reality is mostly commonly used to mean the overlaying of digital images onto a real scene. So...Reno LauroTruth to Power in a Hyperreal Agetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83423522453ef0148c6990151970c2010-12-10T08:51:02-07:002010-12-10T09:10:18-07:00If you speak Truth to Power and no news outlet covers it ... was it said at all? Unfortunately, no. Welcome to the hyperreal age. Here, in the halls of power, Ron Paul delivers a body blow to the U. S. government's response to WikiLeaks, but because it won't be...Reno Lauro