Phantasmal Media: An Approach to Imagination, Computation, and Expression

441 Pages·2013·9.745 MB·English

by  D. Fox Harrell

Phantasmal media

Phantasmal media
an approach to imagination, Computation, and expression
d. Fox harrell
the mit Press
Cambridge, massachusetts
london, england
© 2013 Douglas (Fox) Alan Harrell Jr.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical
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This book was set in Adobe Garamond and Gotham by the MIT Press. Printed and bound in the United
States of America.
Cover image composed from a photograph of In the Hood (sweatshirt hood, dimensions variable; David
Hammons, 1993) and a Turing Machine (Cbucklely, licensed under a Creative Commons Attributions
Share Alike 3.0 Unported license).
Chapter 3 epigraph: Complete panel (“All media of communication . . . mind to mind”) from
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Copyright © 1993, 1994 by Scott McCloud. Reprinted by
permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
Chapter 4 quotation: “Walking Around” by Pablo Neruda, translated by Donald D. Walsh, from
Residence on Earth, copyright ©1973 by Pablo Neruda and Donald D. Walsh. Reprinted by permission
of New Directions Publishing Corp. 
This book draws on several articles and chapters published previously, including the following: “Agency
Play: Expressive Dimensions of Agency for Interactive Narrative Design,” in Proceedings of the AAAI
2009 Spring Symposium on Narrative Intelligence II, 156–162 (Menlo Park, CA: AAAI Press, 2009) (with
Jichen Zhu); “Cultural Roots for Computing: The Case of African Diasporic Orature and Computational
Narrative in the GRIOT System,” Fibreculture 11 (adapted from Proceedings of the 7th Digital Arts and
Culture Conference, 157–168 [Perth, Australia; Curtin University of Technology, 2007]); “Toward a
Theory of Phantasmal Media: An Imaginative Cognition- and Computation-Based Approach to Digital
Media,” CTheory, September 2, 2009; “Phantasmal Fictions,” American Book Review 31 (6) (September/
October 2010); 4–6.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harrell, D. Fox.
Phantasmal media : an approach to imagination, computation, and expression / D. Fox Harrell.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-262-01933-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Computers and civilization. 2. Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.) 3. New media art. I. Title.
QA76.9.C66H38 2013
303.48’34—dc23
2012051759

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
to
my father
and
my son,
who give me
light
to see
&
my wife,
who gives me
water
to grow

Contents
PreFaCe ix
aCknowledgments xvii
i  introduCtion 1
1 deFining Phantasms 3
2 imagining and ComPuting Phantasms 29
ii  subjeCtive ComPuting 67
3 exPressive ePistemologies 71
4 PolymorPhiC PoetiCs 115
iii  Cultural ComPuting 167
5 Cultural Phantasms 171
6 integrative Cultural systems 207
iv  CritiCal ComPuting 251
7 agenCy Play 255
8 CritiCal-ComPutational emPowerment 283
v  ConClusion 335
9 Phantasmal media and the human Condition 337
summary 343
glossary 349
notes 355
reFerenCes 367
index 385

Preface
The imagination is at the root of many things we see as social reality. A “phantasm”
is a particular pervasive kind of imagination, one that encompasses cognitive phe-
nomena including sense of self, metaphor, social categorization, narrative, and poetic
thinking. This type of imagination influences almost all our everyday experiences,
across diverse domains of experience, including art, entertainment, commerce, cul-
ture, and power relationships. This book presents an approach to understanding and
designing computing systems that evoke these ubiquitous and often-unseen phan-
tasms—with special attention paid to revealing oppressive phantasms and creating
empowering phantasms.
Self-reflection and Nostalgia
This book grew out of a childhood idea. Television, everyone said, was already com-
promised—it rotted minds and turned people into couch potatoes. So I wondered if
there would be any way that I could help whatever medium came next to play a
more ethical role in society. I cannot say that this book lives up to the dream that
musing sparked. Yet this book might be considered a step in pursuing a more mature
vision rooted in that early dream, with its dual aims of helping people see the uncon-
scious forces that shape media images and helping them use computational media—
the next media after television, one could say—to affect society for the better.