Musings on art and modern audiences

AI and narratives of female deception: Ex Machina and The Artifice Girl AI technologies are increasingly prominent in the public arena, and often it seems we can forget how much AI influences our everyday lives. How easy it is to ask Siri to do tasks for us, to pose our trivial questions to Google rather than consulting an encyclopaedia! And perhaps it’s an interesting thing to note, too, that those disembodied AI voices are female. Maybe this is a significant thing to note, but maybe it’s nothing we need to think too deeply about. But what is worth paying attention to is the fact that many artistic, imagined renderings of AI in fiction depict feminine AIs.  AVA is the AI at the centre of Ex Machina , Cherry that of The Artifice Girl , and these are but two examples of female AI in fiction, specifically cinema. It might be that there’s nothing significant about the tendency to depict AI as female in film, but then again, there’s a connection to the AIs which feature in modern life...

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? : Agatha Christie’s literary talent Everyone’s heard of Agatha Christie, and can almost certainly name one of her novels, if not many of them. Christie’s writing has come to be emblematic of the murder mystery, particularly within the time period she sets her stories. As such, it’s probably fair to say there is something of an Agatha Christie brand, if you like. Her work is recognisable and popular because it’s her work. People will read her novels because they’re written by her and therefore they must be at least half-decent. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good Agatha Christie mystery, but it should be said that there’s a difference between reading the works of an author you like, and reading the works of an author who is known to be “a good writer” simply because you have certain expectations.  I wonder if we’re used to approaching Christie’s work in relation to how it operates as part of a wider franchise and genre, so we place a lot of emphasis on solvi...

My Fair Lady and Pygmalion : a play born for musical theatre For a story so concerned with sound, speech and communication, it’s no wonder George Bernard Shaw’s play works so naturally as a musical.  George Bernard Shaw’s wonderful 1913 comedy Pygmalion was made for musical theatre. It’s a play so preoccupied with language and communication - the sounds, the methodologies of codifying language (the language we use to write languages’ rules), modes of non-verbal communication, miscommunications, translations and so on. In other words, it’s a celebration of everything language can do, as well as everything it can’t.  And so Bernard Shaw gives us a play. He gives us spoken word, communication through not only speech and dialogue but also in gestures and expressions, costume and make-up, stagecraft and props. Bernard Shaw is also infamous for his disregard for grammar and punctuation, and Pygmalion is no exception; there’s hardly a comma or capital letter in sight. In short, P...

The Menu : ... what did I just watch? Generally speaking, The Menu has baffled audiences across the board, and it’s up to personal taste whether this is the kind of weird film you enjoy or the kind of weird film that repels your interest. In other words, that’s my explanation for why this blog has taken so long to come together: quite simply, I don’t really know where I stand with it, but there are some things which have caught my attention.  The era of “trends” reveals an old problem in human self-presentation. Humans want to be both utterly unique, and to belong to a community. Being “trendy” is the manifestation of that latter desire, that assimilatory drive. Trends are not necessarily something you choose to subscribe to because you deeply believe in it, because you feel some kind of connection to the thing itself, but because it’s an opportunity to connect with other people. Others are investing in this thing, and I want to share in that, so I will engage with this trend....

Dune : major blockbuster or multi-part franchise approach? Lovers of Dune will be very aware of the vast differences between Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel, David Lynch’s 1984 film, and Denis Villeneuve’s ongoing Dune trilogy. This blog is interested in Dune as a piece of popular media, particularly the ways Villeneuve and Lynch’s films deviate from Herbert’s novels, respectively.  Much of the criticism around Villeneuve’s Dune centred on its runtime and pacing, despite the fact Villeneuve has made clear his adaptation will track Herbert’s story over the course of three films, not just the one. Audiences then cannot expect a fully fledged story in the first instalment of a three part franchise. Although given that David Lynch’s film compressed the entirety of Herbert’s novel into just over two hours, Villeneuve’s Dune seems anomalous not only to the franchise but in modern cinema more widely. “What do you mean there’s still more to go?” audiences rage. Patience is a virtue, so the...