A video about neural networks, function approximation, machine learning, and mathematical building blocks. Dennis Nedry did nothing wrong. This is a submission for #SoME3

My Links Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emergentgarden Discord: https://discord.gg/ZsrAAByEnr

Links and Content: On Mathematical Maturity, Thomas Garrity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHU1xH6Ogs4 Earth Rotation Loop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiQdLP2mBJE Modeling Shell Surfaces: https://www.geogebra.org/m/xtv7zpn5 Fourier Features Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.10739 Code for mandelbrot/image approximations: https://github.com/MaxRobinsonTheGreat/mandelbrotnn Code for line/surface approximations: https://github.com/MaxRobinsonTheGreat/ManimApproximations

Music: https://youtube.com/@acolyte-compositions

Timestamps (0:00) Functions Describe the World (3:15) Neural Architecture (5:35) Higher Dimensions (11:55) Taylor Series (15:20) Fourier Series (21:25) The Real World (24:32) An Open Challenge

Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.

Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.

Coury and Try go over what it's like to get started with the MiSTer FPGA project in 2022 - the parts you need, the processes required to set it up, what you need to do to get great audio and video, and what kinds of fun things you can do with the many console, computer, handheld, and arcade cores! You might just see that it isn't nearly as hard as you thought it was!

► Resources

► MiSTer Development & Documentation :: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel :: https://mister-devel.github.io/MkDocs_MiSTer/

► MiSTer Social Resources :: https://misterfpga.org/ :: https://discord.gg/misterfpga

► MiSTer YouTube Resources :: https://www.youtube.com/MiSTerFPGA :: https://www.youtube.com/MiSTerWalrusFPGA :: https://www.youtube.com/VideoGameEsoterica

:: https://www.youtube.com/LusRetroSource

► Chapters 00:00 - Opening 1:55 - Part 1: MiSTer Overview 6:45 - Part 2: Core Focus: Atari Consoles, ColecoVision and other Pre-NES Consoles 12:06 - Part 3: Building your MiSTer 19:26 - Part 4: Core Focus: NES and Super NES 27:38 - Part 5: Setting up the SD Card 33:34 - Part 6: Core Focus: PC-Engine/Turbografx-16 & Neo Geo 44:18 - Part 7: MiSTer OS, Input Options and other Odds 'n Ends 53:51 - Part 8: Universal MiSTer Settings, Editing the .ini File 01:05:16 - Part 9: Core Focus: Sega Master System, Game Gear, Genesis/Mega Drive and Sega CD 01:20:16 - Part 10: MiSTer Audio and Video Settings 01:37:07 - Part 11: Core Preview: MiSTer PlayStation 1 01:43:32 - Part 12: Core Focus: 486 PC, Commodore 64, Amiga, ZX Spectrum, MSX, Sharp X68000 02:10:07 - Part 13: Core Focus: Game Boy / Color, Game Boy Advance, WonderSwan, Atari Lynx 02:25:25 - Part 14: Core Focus: Capcom CPS-1 & CPS-2, Sega System-16 and more Classic Arcade Games 02:37:02 - Ending

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"Principle" by Matt McCheskey https://nightvoice.bandcamp.com/ https://matthewmccheskey.bandcamp.com/​

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Coury Carlson My Life in Gaming P.O. Box 72172 Newport, KY 41072

Marc "Try4ce" Duddleson My Life in Gaming P.O. Box 2684 Indian Trail, NC 28079

❤ Social ❤

http://www.mylifeingaming.com http://twitter.com/MyLifeInGaming http://www.facebook.com/mylifeingames

My Life in Gaming makes documentaries, deep dives into retro console hardware, and more.

Today I am releasing the new AO486 DOS Shareware pack to the public. This includes an all new DOS Frontend interface developed by BBond007 (https://www.youtube.com/user/binarybond007). The pack is 100% shareware and opensource so it can be shared freely to give a great base for future packs and to show off all the new features. There are no Commercial products in this release. Over 100 games, 30 DOS shareware screensavers, MOD and MIDI Music, Music Players, and shareware DOS applications all built on the FreeDOS OS.

Shareware Pack includes: Over 100 DOS Shareware titles that have been tested and configured for the MiSTer AO486 PC Core. ANSI art and gamecards built for each game. MyMenu Features: MyMenu is a DOS frontend designed to allow you to quickly launch DOS games, applications, scripts, and music.

Launch scripts, exe, bat, or any custom extension that you configure in the MyMenu.ini configuration file. Add any game to C:\Games\My Cool Game Name\ and it will now show in MyMenu automatically. We have tested up to 10,000 games in the list!

Other Feature: DOS Long File Name support Autorun.bat -- Autorun any game Readme.ans -- ANSI Readme and gamecard for each game! ANSI and ASCII art support for browsing ANSI and creating custom game cards for the interface ANSi Terminal (COM) and (Console) support Quickly set MiSTer core speed and cache options Screensavers CGA/VGA Support Music player integration for MOD, MIDI, XM, A2M, and MP3. Terminal Support for MidiLink, Serial, and BBS connection.

Github scripts integration and updates coming!

bbond007's MidiLink: https://github.com/bbond007/MiSTer_MidiLink

Latest release located at: https://github.com/flynnsbit/DOS_Shareware_MyMenu Under Releases.

Introduction and History lesson 00:00 Pack Demonstration: 05:00 MyMenu DOS Interface: 06:00 Autorun.bat and README.ANS Demo: 10:05 Doom Demo: 11:23 Edit Autorun.bat: 12:30 Broken games moved: 12:55 MyMenu ANSi: 13:11 MyMenu Apps/Games/Music/Ansi: 14:00 MyMenu Music and MIDI Demo: 14:23 MyMenu ANSI Art examples: 15:51 MyMenu Quick feature list and readme: 16:21 MyMenu F1 Menu: 17:20 MyMenu MT32-Pi Integration Menu: 17:58 MyMenu Screensavers: 18:21 MyMenu.ini configuration options: 18:45 MyMenu Screensavers config and demo: 19:40 MyMenu Utilities and Memory Management: 22:37 Explosiv! Screensaver Setup: 24:00 MP3's and Internet Radio on MiSTer: 25:14 Download Midilink: 25:41 MP3 Music Tracks and Internet Radio in AO486: 26:00 WHAT IS THIS SONG!!? : 28:06 Mp3 songs as Music track in DOS games: 28:25 MyMenu MP3 Quicklinks: 29:15 Internet Radio Playlists as Music Track in DOS: 29:31 Internet Radio in DOS - Classic Rock: 30:38 Internet Radio in DOS - Dance: 31:48 MyMenu Color Templates and Themes: 32:20 MiSTer console control of MP3s from batch scripts in DOS: 33:56 DOS Doom w/ Doom Eternal Mp3 Soundtrack in DOS Demo scripted: 35:57 DOS Earthworm Jim w/ MP3 Music Playlist: 38:02 DOS SimCity 2000 w/ MP3 Music Playlist: 39:23 Conclusion and Download: 40:00

Horror movies played a huge role in my life and horror classics such as "The Shining," "The Exorcist," and "The Thing." are and likely always will be some of my favorite films of all time. But the horror genre has changed drastically. The plots are formulaic, remakes and reboots are the norm and the scares are dried up.

I'll always be a fan of horror movies, but if you are looking for some severe scares this Halloween, consider checking out a non-horror. A BBC produced Docu-drama from 1984 called, "Threads."

The most realistic and gruesome depiction of nuclear war and the price to be paid afterward are on full display in "Threads." (1984) And there are no shortages of terrifying scares.

With "Threads," (1984) if you know, you know. If you don't know and are on the hunt for scares and a shock to your system, look no further than "Threads" (1984)

Own a copy of The Denial of Death, by Ernest Becker, today: https://amzn.to/3Qg8Tmf

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What happens when you try to use 1987's Commodore Amiga 500 artificial intelligence to beat a 2019 MacBook at chess? You may not believe the result!... Made possible by the patrons & our friendly sponsor http://PCBWay.com - brill PCBs from $5!

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Useful Resources for F&SF; Writers: Awards Posts for F&SF; Writers Book Recommendations for F&SF; Writers: Craft Essays for F&SF; Writers Career-focused Essays for F&SF; Writers Story Prompts for F&SF; Writers #sfwapro

TASBot takes the Celeste All Red Berries train and discovers CovertMuffin blocks (with downtime edited out) by euni, fishmcmuffins, and kilaye, joined on the couch by TGH, buhbai, Kevin from PowerUp Audio, and dwangoAC at the SGDQ 2019 TAS block. This TAS is incredible, complete with a massive chain of red berries following Madeline up the mountain.

GDQ set the donation incentive to $175k to see this game and viewers responded resoundingly, filling the donation incentive with plenty of time to spare. This Celeste All Red Berries TAS represents over 2,000 hours of effort spearheaded by euni with help from fishmcmuffins and kilaye. This TAS was made with tools pioneered by DevilSquirrel and extended over time by others.

The commentary on this run is some of the best at any GDQ, with frequent asides from TGH on realtime viability and developer commentary right on the couch from Kevin who helped in the creation of the game. This run even includes a surprise beyond the jawdropping; unbeknownst to many, Kevin from PowerUp Audio secretly altered the sound played by his namesake blocks to spread some FWAHAHA love.

Note: During the event a minor startup issue occurred which required restarting the run; that section has been edited out of the video. Additionally, the GDQ sound board crashed during the run causing 10 seconds of lost audio after which the run was paused until the issue could be resolved. The downtime during that issue was also edited. The run is otherwise unbroken as evidenced by the countdown timer and everything presented is a legitimate playthrough; the tools used to create this TAS do not alter gameplay in any way and this represents the fastest possible way to navigate the game based on how the game is written. There is no cheating on display here, only hours of dedication by the TAS authors to determine the fastest possible route through the game while collecting every single Red Berry in the game.

Celeste community links: euni - https://www.twitch.tv/euni_i kilaye - https://www.youtube.com/user/KilayeFr fishmcmuffins - https://www.twitch.tv/fishmcmuffins Source code - https://github.com/EuniverseCat/CelesteTAS/tree/SGDQ

TASBot links: Discord - http://Discord.TAS.bot TASBot home - https://TAS.bot Twitch live streams - http://twitch.tv/dwangoAC Music by DJPIE1337 - https://dj-pie.bandcamp.com AngelWind: YouTube Editor for Hire - angelwind76@gmail.com

This video was posted with permission from Games Done Quick and with the permission of euni representing the TAS authors.

The World of Wakanda

Black Panther, the movie, is heading toward $1-billion at the box office on just its third weekend. Already it seems that commercial success is likely not what Black Panther will be remembered for. It is a grand coming-together of African-American cultural production. The story in it is a mix of myth and magic in the made-up African nation of Wakanda.  It’s a technologically advanced society in a land that was never got colonized; and it holds the world’s only big deposits of an all-powerful mineral element, vibranium. 

Wakanda is an immense showcase of black agency and so is the movie Black Panther, in all the arts: writers and actors working off fact and fantasy, imagination and history and tough-minded politics, too. In the stunned aftermath, not least of the marvels about this movie is realizing that Black Panther, the character—and a lot of his immense fan base—is built on the culture of comic books that lots of us have never read. So this hour’s inventory of Black Panther first impressions begins with those drawings going back even before the Marvel Comics series began in the 1960s.  

John Jennings leads the way. Prolific in comic books and illustrated novels—like Octavia Butler’s Kindred, for example—Jennings grew up drawing in Mississippi. He’s Professor of Media Studies now at the University of California, Riverside. He’s dedicated his new anthology, Black Comix Returns, “to all the little black boys and girls who never have to know what it’s like NOT to see yourself as a hero, as subject, as vital to the society you live in.”

Ytasha Womack joins us from Chicago. She is a dancer, filmmaker, and futurist, who describes herself as a “champion of humanity and imagination.” She also wrote the book on Afrofuturism—the cultural aesthetic which links T’Challa, King of Wakanda, to the great jazz eccentric from Alabama, Sun Ra.

Harvey Young is our resident theater critic as well as the new dean of the College of Fine Arts at Boston University.  He’s written a lot about black performance, most notably in his Chicago oral history, Black Theater is Black Life.  

Brooke Obie is a a full-time writer and novelist who’s seen Black Panther five times so far. In her review of the movie for the black cinema site Shadow & Act—she puts forward a strong defense of “Eric Killmonger and the lost children of Wakanda.”

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò grew up in the north suburbs of Cincinnati as the child of Nigerian immigrants He’s now a PhD candidate at UCLA and will soon be an assistant professor of philosophy at Georgetown. His family history makes him still wary of the warrior class represented by Killmonger in the film. 

Evan Narcisse, the lead writer for Marvel’s “Rise of the Black Panther” series, was born in Brooklyn of Haitian parents. He grew up with the legend of Toussaint Louverture, who led a slave rebellion against French colonists and finally beat Napoleon’s Army to liberate Haiti—the only time ex-slaves defeated a great power for their freedom, for which Haitians paid a terrible price. That too is part of what Evan Narcisse brings to his work on Black Panther.

Douglas Wolk of Austin, Texax is our unofficial “dean of American comic book critics.” He has made it his life’s mission to read “all of the Marvels” and will soon write about them. This week, he gave us the short form on what they all mean.

http://radioopensource.org/the-world-of-wakanda/

Or... How To Not Be A Horse. Automation and AI promise to usher in an era of amazing productivity and innovation. But they also threaten our very way of life.

Support me on Patreon! http://www.patreon.com/answerswithjoe

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LINKS LINKS LINKS:

Tony Seba's talk about why transportation and energy will be obsolete by 2030: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxryv2XrnqM

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/ct-self-driving-cars-now-20160818-story.html

Okuma Automation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d-kPBbxb0Q

CNet News on the automated Amazon fulfillment centers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtBa9yVZBJM

Fully Charged - Self-Driving Nissan Leaf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfRqNAhAe6c

Partial Transcript:

For hundreds, even thousands of years, the horse was humanity’s go-to form of transportation. And in 13 years, that all changed.

Right now, we are on the cusp of a technological disruption that will make the switch from horses to cars look like switching from Coke to Pepsi.

So we talk a lot on this channel about exponential growth, artificial intelligence, the singularity, and that’s a lot of fun, but there is a dark side to all this change, one that really needs to be talked about because the way we respond to it is going to significantly alter our future as a species.

The BBC released a report just a few weeks ago that said that 30% of jobs are going to go away in the next 10 years because of automation.

In the U.S., we’ve heard a lot over the last election about the proverbial coal miners and our current president specifically campaigning to bring back coal jobs.

But coal is just one of hundreds of industries that are taking advantage of employees that can work 24/7, never need a bathroom break, never sleep, never make a mistake and work twice as fast. Oh, and you don’t have to pay them.

Factories already decimated by outsourcing are now losing even more jobs to automation. And as automation becomes more sophisticated, more industries are at risk.

The transportation sector actually makes up 25% of the jobs in the United States, if you can believe that. A full quarter of the population. And autonomous cars… They’re pretty much here, guys.

Famously, the Tesla Model 3, going into production this year, will have autonomous capability, though it may not have the software available, it will have the hardware ready for it.

But less famously, there are a lot of other car companies trying to beat Tesla to market with this. Nissan has a fully self-driving prototype in development that they took a drive in on Fully Charged and it was spooky how good it was.

Cadillac is so bullish on self-driving technology, they spent millions of dollars to create a lidar map of every highway in the United States using their own proprietary system.

This way their cars won’t just rely on sensors and GPS to find their way, the Cadillac system will contain a 3D map of everything, including the roadsigns.

Google’s working on a car, Apple supposedly is working on a car, but the people who are really big on this technology are the service providers.

Uber made over 2 billion dollars last year. Imagine how much they could make if they didn’t have to pay their drivers...

Uber has been working for years on a transportation fleet of autonomous cars, and even Ford has made some intentions known of pivoting in a similar direction.

Many are predicting that cars will go from a retail industry to a service industry, with Peter Diamandis saying that in ten years, car ownership will be an outdated idea.

The fact of the matter is, you can be for automation or against it, you can agree with its use or not, but this is happening. And we need to be ready for it.

Some people are talking about a basic minimum income, a flat amount of money that everybody in a society makes, as a safety net to keep people above water. This is an interesting idea that’s even being tested in some places.

There is a coming change on a fundamental and massive level in this world. One that is filled with amazing advancements and technological wonders. The question is, will we be able to change with it?

Science fiction tells us that a change in a past event, caused by the intervention of a time traveler, will open up a parallel timeline that leads to an alternate present. The example that comes to mind, for some reason, is Back to the Future, Part II. After an unexpected disturbance in the spacetime continuum, Marty McFly visits a world in which Biff Tannen, his father’s high school bully, has gone from unscrupulous small-time businessman to a replica of our current president.

If you accept this idea, it raises the stakes of the present moment: each decision leads not to one inevitable outcome, but a multitude of possible futures. The passage of time isn’t a story, following a hero’s journey from “call to adventure” to “return home.” It’s a website with a series of links, each of which leads to a subsequent series of links. You may begin an evening by reading the Wikipedia entry for tulips or graham crackers, and, depending on the decisions you make, find yourself becoming an expert on Jeffrey Dahmer or Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory by dawn. Unlike the linear media of the printed page, time branches out into alternate possibilities, corresponding to what sociologist Ted Nelson, anticipating the internet decades before its invention, named hypermedia.

In the wake of high-profile police shootings, the Obama administration has encouraged local police departments to equip their officers with body-worn cameras.

Modelling and 3D printing an anatomically correct clitoris (Vimeo) . Sociologist Odile Fillod teamed up with photographer Marie Docher and digital mediator (and Blender user) Mélissa Richard (from the Cité des Sciences) to create the first downloadable, printable and open source 3D model of the complete structure of the clitoris. The model was created specifically to be 3D printed in schools (in French) in order to provide science teachers with a more accurate and less anachronistic representation of the organ during sex education classes. Short text in English about the project. (All links potentially NSFW)

Face it: Siri sucks. So often, she has no clue what you’re saying. And when she does, there’s a pretty good chance she’ll respond with nothing more than a page filled with Internet links. Part of the problem is that Apple’s talking digital assistant is built on old technology.

An excerpt from the audio commentary track on the British Film Institute's Dual Format Edition of RIDDLES OF THE SPHINX (Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, 1977). This exclusive extract was produced by Catherine Grant for the scholarly website FILM STUDIES FOR FREE with the kind permission of Laura Mulvey and the BFI in September 2013. Check out the related entry of links to online writings by and studies of Laura Mulvey's work as a film scholar as well as filmmaker: filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.com/2013/10/celebrating-laura-mulvey-or-film.html For more information about the BFI's Riddles of the Sphinx DVD, please see: bfi.org.uk/blu-rays-dvds/riddles-sphinxCast: Catherine GrantTags: feminist film, film theory, filmmaking, Laura Mulvey, Peter Wollen, British Film Institute, Marc Karlin, Motion Analyzer Projector, refilming, Ken Jacobs, sphinx, Mike Ratledge and electronic music

A review of Cécile B. Evans’ show Hyperlinks, at Seventeen Gallery, London 15th Oct – 6th Dec 2014. With lots of editing and writerly support from Anton Haugen and Michael Conner.

Cécile B. Evans, Hyperlinks or it didn’t happen (2014). Still frame from HD video. Courtesy of Seventeen. Media saturation in the internet’s “cut & paste” ecology has become so naturalized that contemporary film’s collaged aspects are not readily considered. Who are the subjects in, for example, a Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch film? And for whom do they perform? When I show these films in my class, my students switch tabs in their browsers, Snapchat each other, like photos, fav tweets—often on multiple screens at once—then state that this “work is about strange fake-tanned kids’ search for a toilet.” What has made this answer stay in my mind pertains to the word “about.” When used for these works, the banal statement “this work is about…” registers as a crisis of categorical closure that the simultaneous existence of disparate, accumulated content on a single screen constantly thwarts. Central to Cécile B. Evans’ show Hyperlinks at Seventeen Gallery in London is the video-essay, Hyperlinks or it didn’t happen, displayed on a high-resolution TV with headphone cords installed at a comfortable cartoon-watching height in a corner of the space. Entering at the opposite corner, I navigate the gallery space, attempting to link the objects together—a prosthetic leg atop an upturned Eames chair replica near a rubber plant that counterbalances a plexiglass structure supporting 3D-printed arms (One Foot In The Grave, 2014), another Eames replica sitting in one corner (just a chair), various prints on the floor and walls—before sitting down, cross-legged, on a thick-pile rug strewn with postcard-sized images. The film begins with a super high-resolution render of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman’s head floating over the shimmering image of a jellyfish. “I’m not magic, and please don’t call me uncanny,” says a synthetically-augmented human voice. “I’m just a bad copy made too perfectly, too soon.” The video lingers on Hoffman’s face. His lips do not move — at least, not in sync with the voice claiming to be the bad copy. “Fuck. Fuck FUCKING FUCK! I am full of him.” An audience laughter track plays. The bad copy’s hair flutters as his head bobs. The follicles on his nose look like they’d be the perfect environment for a blackhead to take up residence. The subject floating on the screen does not symbolize Hoffman, rather, it is an improper metaphor for the actor’s “untimely death’; for anything that transcends description, yet is saturated with meaning nonetheless. Hyperlinks is so full of meaning that, as the voice suggests, it is set to burst.

Evans wants us to feel uncomfortable at the absence of an uncanny feeling, and by referring to this lack directly in the monologue of the simulated voice, she sets up a relation the viewer and this, a highly stylized, digital avatar. Hoffman, the image-thing, is not really a metaphor, nor is he really a copy, a simulation, or even a simulacrum of a more-real body. Hoffman, the image-thing, is literal and actual, perhaps more so to the viewer than Phillip Seymour Hoffman, the flesh-and-blood human or his “untimely death” was/will/could ever be. In her 2010 essay A Thing Like You and Me, Hito Steyerl defines the image as a thing whose “immortality… originates… from its ability to be xeroxed, recycled, and reincarnated.” [1] Like the postcards strewn throughout Hyperlinks, the floating, self-referential Hoffman points out a literal truth: Hoffman’s head is an “improper metaphor” [2] for the image that it actually is. Catachresis, a term we can employ for such “improper metaphors,” is a forced extension of meaning employed when “when no proper, or literal, term is available.” [3] According to Vivian Sobchack, “catachresis is differentiated from proper metaphor insofar as it forces us to confront” [4] the deficiency and failure of language. In linking across the gap between figural and literal meaning, catachresis marks the precise moment “where living expression states living existence.” [5] The image-things of Evans’ film are similarly analogically hyperlinked to the metaphors they supposedly express. In several sequences, an invisible, green-screened woman wanders a beach with a man who we are told is her partner: the nameless protagonist of Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel, The Invisible Man. For a few seconds, we are confronted with Marlon Brando’s floating head, isolated from scenes deleted from Superman II (1980) to be digitally repurposed for the 2006 film Superman Returns, so the actor could reprise his role as Superman’s father two years after his death. The vocaloid pop-star Hatsune Miku serenades us with the song “Forever Young,” referencing her own immortality in the server banks and USB sticks that confer her identity. We then see, rolling onto a stage in Canada, Edward Snowden gives a TED talk on taking back the web, through a “Telepresence Robot” (an object that looks like a flat-panel screen attached to a Segway). As in a collage, the film splices and dices contiguous space and time, producing a unique configuration of catachretic associations, rather than a continuous narrative about something. Fictions are interwoven with facts, gestures with statements, figures with subjects. Moving about the gallery, the viewer hovers about the strewn postcard-sized images of a counterfeit Kermit the Frog, the render of Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the “hologram” of Michael Jackson. The image-things in Evans’ work seem to exist beyond subject/object distinctions, outside of sense, above their own measure of themselves —selves that they, nonetheless, frequently seem to be measuring and re-measuring. The exhibition comes with its own printed glossary of terms listing references the video makes. The first term in the glossary is “Hyperlink”: A reference to external data that a reader can open either by clicking or by hovering over a point of origin. From Greek hyper (prep. And adv.) “over, beyond, overmuch, above measure.” Here again the figural and literal are called into question. In relation to what can one say the “external” or “beyond” of a hyperlink resides? Why is the etymology for “link” not also given? Though at first, the glossary seems to map the associations, the links, of the disparate imagery presented in the show, it is suggestive of the total-work, presenting an almost anarchistic circulation of imagery as a coherent system. The glossary’s reification of associations gestures towards also the internet’s systemic interpellation of our networked subjecthood; as well as in the film title’s reference to the phrase “Pics, or it didn’t happen,” the show’s contrast between a body’s lifespan and a circulating digital image seems to also echo of our status as “poor copies” of our digital semblances. The image-things in “Hyperlinks” serve – to hijack the words of Scott Bukatman – “as the partial and fragmented representations that they are.” [6] . Through the works’ superfluity of associations and meanings, I found myself considering the impossibility of categorical closure. If totalization means incorporating all disparate things, an ultimate difference erupts: a moment that also signals the deficiency and failure of systemization itself. What makes Evans work successful is this endless calling up of the specter of the beyond, the outside, the everything else, from within the perceived totality of the internet. With the glossary, the totality of the show almost feels performative, gesturing towards the systemic totalizing we confer onto art objects in a gallery space before, after, and, especially, during their imaging. But image-things are considerably more liberated than either objects or subjects. They are more real, precisely because we recognize them as images.

[1] Hito Steyerl, “A Thing Like You and Me,” in The Wretched of the Screen, e-flux Journal (Sternberg Press, 2012), 46–59.

[2] Vivian Carol Sobchack, Carnal Thoughts Embodiment and Moving Image Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 81.

[3] Richard Shiff, “Cezanne’s Physicality: The Politics of Touch,” in The Language of Art History, ed. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge University Press, 1991), 150.

[4] Sobchack, Carnal Thoughts Embodiment and Moving Image Culture, 81.

[5] Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: The Creation of Meaning in Language (Routledge, 2004), 72.

[6] Scott Bukatman, Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), 40.

Cécile B. Evans, Hyperlinks or it didn't happen (2014). Still frame from HD video. Courtesy of Seventeen. Media saturation in the internet's "cut & paste" ecology has become so naturalized that contemporary film's collaged aspects are not readily considered. Who are the subjects in, for example, a Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch film? And for whom do they perform? When I show these films in my class, my students switch tabs in their browsers, Snapchat each other, like photos, fav tweets—often on multiple screens at once—then state that this "work is about strange fake-tanned kids' search for a toilet." What has made this answer stay in my mind pertains to the word "about." When used for these works, the banal statement "this work is about…" registers as a crisis of categorical closure that the simultaneous existence of disparate, accumulated content on a single screen constantly thwarts. Central to Cécile B. Evans' show Hyperlinks at Seventeen Gallery in London is the video-essay, Hyperlinks or it didn't happen, displayed on a high-resolution TV with headphone cords installed at a comfortable cartoon-watching height in a corner of the space. Entering at the opposite corner, I navigate the gallery space, attempting to link the objects together—a prosthetic leg atop an upturned Eames chair replica near a rubber plant that counterbalances a plexiglass structure supporting 3D-printed arms (One Foot In The Grave, 2014), another Eames replica sitting in one corner (just a chair), various prints on the floor and walls—before sitting down, cross-legged, on a thick-pile rug strewn with postcard-sized images.  

Cécile B. Evans, "Hyperlinks," Installation view. Courtesy of Seventeen. The film begins with a super high-resolution render of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman's head floating over the shimmering image of a jellyfish. "I'm not magic, and please don't call me uncanny," says a synthetically-augmented human voice. "I'm just a bad copy made too perfectly, too soon." The video lingers on Hoffman's face. His lips do not move — at least, not in sync with the voice claiming to be the bad copy. "Fuck. Fuck FUCKING FUCK! I am full of him." An audience laughter track plays. The bad copy's hair flutters as his head bobs. The follicles on his nose look like they'd be the perfect environment for a blackhead to take up residence. The subject floating on the screen does not symbolize Hoffman, rather, it is an improper metaphor for the actor's "untimely death'; for anything that transcends description, yet is saturated with meaning nonetheless. Hyperlinks is so full of meaning that, as the voice suggests, it is set to burst. Evans wants us to feel uncomfortable at the absence of an uncanny feeling, and by referring to this lack directly in the monologue of the simulated voice, she sets up a relation the viewer and this, a highly stylized, digital avatar. Hoffman, the image-thing, is not really a metaphor, nor is he really a copy, a simulation, or even a simulacrum of a more-real body. Hoffman, the image-thing, is literal and actual, perhaps more so to the viewer than Phillip Seymour Hoffman, the flesh-and-blood human or his "untimely death" was/will/could ever be. In her 2010 essay A Thing Like You and Me, Hito Steyerl defines the image as a thing whose "immortality… originates… from its ability to be xeroxed, recycled, and reincarnated." [1] Like the postcards strewn throughout Hyperlinks, the floating, self-referential Hoffman points out a literal truth: Hoffman's head is an "improper metaphor" [2] for the image that it actually is.  Catachresis, a term we can employ for such "improper metaphors," is a forced extension of meaning employed when "when no proper, or literal, term is available." [3] According to Vivian Sobchack, "catachresis is differentiated from proper metaphor insofar as it forces us to confront" [4] the deficiency and failure of language. In linking across the gap between figural and literal meaning, catachresis marks the precise moment "where living expression states living existence." [5] The image-things of Evans' film are similarly analogically hyperlinked to the metaphors they supposedly express. In several sequences, an invisible, green-screened woman wanders a beach with a man who we are told is her partner: the nameless protagonist of Ralph Ellison's 1952 novel, The Invisible Man. For a few seconds, we are confronted with Marlon Brando's floating head, isolated from scenes deleted from Superman II (1980) to be digitally repurposed for the 2006 film Superman Returns, so the actor could reprise his role as Superman's father two years after his death.

The vocaloid pop-star Hatsune Miku serenades us with the song "Forever Young," referencing her own immortality in the server banks and USB sticks that confer her identity. We then see, rolling onto a stage in Canada, Edward Snowden gives a TED talk on taking back the web, through a "Telepresence Robot" (an object that looks like a flat-panel screen attached to a Segway). As in a collage, the film splices and dices contiguous space and time, producing a unique configuration of catachretic associations, rather than a continuous narrative about something. Fictions are interwoven with facts, gestures with statements, figures with subjects. Moving about the gallery, the viewer hovers about the strewn postcard-sized images of a counterfeit Kermit the Frog, the render of Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the "hologram" of Michael Jackson. The image-things in Evans' work seem to exist beyond subject/object distinctions, outside of sense, above their own measure of themselves —selves that they, nonetheless, frequently seem to be measuring and re-measuring. The exhibition comes with its own printed glossary of terms listing references the video makes. The first term in the glossary is "Hyperlink":               A reference to external data that a reader can open either by clicking or by hovering over a point of origin. From Greek hyper (prep. And adv.) "over, beyond, overmuch, above measure." Here again the figural and literal are called into question. In relation to what can one say the "external" or "beyond" of a hyperlink resides? Why is the etymology for "link" not also given? Though at first, the glossary seems to map the associations, the links, of the disparate imagery presented in the show, it is suggestive of the total-work, presenting an almost anarchistic circulation of imagery as a coherent system. The glossary's reification of associations gestures towards also the internet's systemic interpellation of our networked subjecthood; as well as in the film title's reference to the phrase "Pics, or it didn't happen," the show's contrast between a body's lifespan and a circulating digital image seems to also echo of our status as "poor copies" of our digital semblances. The image-things in "Hyperlinks" serve – to hijack the words of Scott Bukatman - "as the partial and fragmented representations that they are." [6] . Through the works' superfluity of associations and meanings, I found myself considering the impossibility of categorical closure. If totalization means incorporating all disparate things, an ultimate difference erupts: a moment that also signals the deficiency and failure of systemization itself. What makes Evans work successful is this endless calling up of the specter of the beyond, the outside, the everything else, from within the perceived totality of the internet. With the glossary, the totality of the show almost feels performative, gesturing towards the systemic totalizing we confer onto art objects in a gallery space before, after, and, especially, during their imaging. But image-things are considerably more liberated than either objects or subjects. They are more real, precisely because we recognize them as images.

[1] Hito Steyerl, “A Thing Like You and Me,” in The Wretched of the Screen, e-flux Journal (Sternberg Press, 2012), 46–59.

[2] Vivian Carol Sobchack, Carnal Thoughts Embodiment and Moving Image Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 81.

[3] Richard Shiff, “Cezanne’s Physicality: The Politics of Touch,” in The Language of Art History, ed. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge University Press, 1991), 150.

[4] Sobchack, Carnal Thoughts Embodiment and Moving Image Culture, 81.

[5] Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: The Creation of Meaning in Language (Routledge, 2004), 72.

[6] Scott Bukatman, Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), 40.

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