The Composited Self: From Animation to Augmented Reality

Digital imaging software transforms how we inhabit space, reimagining the lived environment as an ever-transforming stack of semi-transparent data layers. Moving back through animation history, up through contemporary motion graphics, and forward into an augmented reality future, this talk traces the intersection of visual compositing and emerging techniques of self. Amidst the fluctuating surfaces of daily life, affect is ultimately what holds everything together, becoming the new ontological ground of the digital image.

Paul Roquet is a postdoctoral fellow in global media and film studies in the Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. He holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and from 2012-2015 was a postdoctoral fellow in the humanities at Stanford. He is the author of Ambient Media: Japanese Atmospheres of Self (Minnesota, 2016), as well as essays on spatial perception and mood regulation in experimental film, electronic music, and contemporary literature. This talk is drawn from his current book project, on how digital image compositing reconfigures the relationship between self, emotion, and environment.

Image credits: Tamaki Roy, “Wonderful” (t); Dennō Coil (b)