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Abstract
In Indonesia, the Covid-19 pandemic dramatically affected many sectors, in particular modern theatre and higher education institutions that host campus theatres. This study focuses on the strategies employed by campus theatres to survive the pandemic, focusing on digital theatre productions by Petra Theatre (formerly Petra Little Theatre) in Surabaya, Play Performance Class in Yogyakarta, and Teater Kampus in Makassar posted on YouTube in 2020–2022. Taking the perspectives by Matthew Causey on digital performance, supported by Sarah Bay-Cheng’s dramaturgy of distortion of mediated theatre, and by Philip Auslander on liveness in mediatized performance, we analyze the emergence of certain aspects of mediatized/digital theatre that pertain to actor-audience relation and time-space relations exemplified by the digital performance offered by these three campus theatres.
Abstract
This study presents the complex tapestry of Indonesia’s nation branding, by investigating the activities of its influencers at international fashion events. The research questions focus on the influencers, the use of national symbols, and online textual expression, in which visual and internet lexicons converge. By simultaneously assessing the resonance for local and international spectators, we identify the dominant themes and narratives promoted by these influencers at international fashion events. We adopt a theoretical perspective focused on the employment of young influencers in nation branding, and our results reveal a striking dichotomy. Although these charismatic personalities can increase the resonance of nation branding, they frequently veer off course and are occasionally diverted by the potential for achieving fame. This divergence reveals a problematic issue: the use of influencers might unintentionally damage the national story that their employers want them to present.
Abstract
This article examines the Japanese government’s Society 5.0 initiative and its intersection with surveillance based on artificial intelligence (AI). Announced in 2019, Society 5.0 seeks to leverage AI to address Japan’s aging population and other social issues. I examine government documents on the initiative and an example of a smart city project that implements the Society 5.0 vision and, in doing so, highlight a tension between its architects’ proclaimed commitment to socially responsible, ‘human-centric’ uses of AI and the frequent ambiguity of their invocations of the technology. I argue that this lack of a clear definition of AI forestalls an interrogation of the expansive surveillance infrastructure that the initiative would entail. Examining Society 5.0 and its proposed infrastructure, I reveal a schema of digital surveillance and control best characterized as organizational in nature, as it seeks to monitor and coordinate movements, interactions, and behaviours.
Abstract
This article examines the recent emergence on Chinese livestreaming platforms of what I call ‘rural boy groups’. Mostly self-employed and self-trained, the members of rural boy groups capitalize on the most accessible resources that they have – their own bodies – to become digital entrepreneurs, instead of following the conventional path as migrant workers or manual laborers in urban cities. Engaging with Sianne Ngai’s concept of the gimmick, the article investigates what makes their performance gimmicky: namely, ‘earthy taste’ (tuwei) aesthetic, ‘awkwardness’ (ga), and atmospheric interaction. It shows that this gimmicky entertainment by rural boy groups simultaneously exposes and exploits the underlying conditions of their labor, such as class divides and platform exploitation, which ends up perpetuating their precarious situation.
Abstract
This article traces the genealogy of contemporary data-driven computer vision to developments at the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) in the 1960s. Specifically, it examines NHK’s Visual and Auditory Information Science Unit and its role in the invention of the world’s first deep convolutional neural network. The use of television to collect viewer behaviour data enabled modelling of eye-brain information processing, in particular mechanisms of feature extraction. This, in turn, linked Fukushima Kunihiko’s formative work on signal compression to the development of a pattern recognition machine, resulting in the creation of the world’s first convolutional neural network. Recovering this history is important for two reasons. First, it helps counter a trend of ‘digital universalism’ that covertly homogenizes local differences into a single culture of artificial intelligence in the Cold-War-era US. Second, it reveals the largely ignored role of television in the genesis of digital image technologies and AI more broadly.