[ecrea] Deletion: Episode 9: Deletion|Deviation

Episode 9 of /Deletion/: the online, open access forum in science
fiction, has just been released. The edition compiles a selection of
papers presented at the inaugral /Deletion|Deviation /science fiction
symposium and can be found here:
http://www.deletionscifi.org/episodes/episode-9/episode-9-deletiondeviation/ 



Please share and circulate amongst any interested colleagues and networks!


​Best,


Dr. Grady Clare Hancock
Casual academic/Sessional tutor
Deakin University
School of Communication and Creative Arts
Email: (gha /at/ deakin.edu.au)
Website: http://deakin.academia.edu/GradyHancock
deletionscifi.org.au <http://deletionscifi.org.au>


________



Deletion’s two-day symposium, Deletion/Deviation, presented a
constellation of new perspectives on contemporary science fiction and
its many perversions. As organizer Dr. Grady Hancock wrote in her
introduction to the conference programme,

/Science Fiction exists in a state of tension between the pleasurable
and the perverse — of the pleasure gained from its fictive forms, and
the perversions of facts and flesh within its speculative futures,
imagined worlds and creative appropriations of technological innovation./

/There is an immutable thread that runs throughout science fiction, that
which “distinguishes its fictional worlds to one degree or another from
the world in which we live” (Roberts, 2000), worlds perhaps
characterised by Darko Suvin’s ‘estrangement’ or Samuel Delaney’s
‘reading/writing effects.’ The ways in which this distinction is
maintained traces the nebulous line between the pleasurable and perverse
in science fiction. How does the pleasure of its fiction collide with
the perversions of the ‘world in which we live’?/

At least one surprising and pleasurable collision revealed by the
symposium was the number of papers (three) devoted to the actress
Scarlett Johansson or to recent films in which she has appeared (three,
if one counts her voicing of the character of Samantha in Spike Jonze’s
Her), encouraging participants to propose that Johansson is the new
“Queen of Sci Fi Film.” Be that as it may, included here is Alicia
Byrnes’ paper, /Alienating the Gaze: The Hybrid Femme Fatale of Under
the Skin/, where Byrnes analyses Jonathan Glazer’s 2014 film Under the
Skin in terms of the figure of the femme fatale, noting that the
“paucity of scholarly work focusing on the representation of the femme
fatale within science fiction is surprising given her aptness to the genre.”

Our keynote speaker, Anne Cranny-Francis
<http://www.deletionscifi.org/episodes/episode-9/perversely-pleasurable-and-pleasurably-perverse-what-makes-science-fiction-great-2/>, 

introduced the overall theme of the symposium in her paper, /Perversely
Pleasurable and Pleasurably Perverse: What Makes Science Fiction Great/.
<http://www.deletionscifi.org/episodes/episode-9/perversely-pleasurable-and-pleasurably-perverse-what-makes-science-fiction-great-2/> 
Her
paper is at once a personal consideration of growing up with science
fiction (“coming of age in outer space” as she calls it), and a mapping
of the genre which explores how society produces “social norms of
gender, sexuality, class and race” looking in particular at writings of
Alice B. Sheldon, known, of course, to science fiction fans for most of
her life as James Tiptree Jnr. And Cranny-Francis’ “story ends with the
richness of contemporary science fiction and its interrogation of what
constitutes embodied human being in the early 21st century.”

Ian Dixon’
<http://www.deletionscifi.org/episodes/episode-9/deviance-under-the-dome-horrorscience-fiction-hybridity-as-uncanny-in-feature-film-the-perimeter/>s 

/Deviance Under the Dome: Horror/Science-Fiction Hybridity as Uncanny/
<http://www.deletionscifi.org/episodes/episode-9/deviance-under-the-dome-horrorscience-fiction-hybridity-as-uncanny-in-feature-film-the-perimeter/> 
in
the feature film The Perimeter draws on a number of intertwined
theoretical positions to explore the science fiction/horror film
project, The Perimeter. Inspired by Stephen Cleary’s masterclass in
‘lo-bo’ (low budget) cinema, Dixon’s film and his paper explore the
narratological, theoretical and practical questions provoked by the
ideas explored within the screenplay. Dixon’s paper is an exemplary
response to the problem of “practice-led research” in screen studies,
particularly in regards to science fiction and horror hybrids.

In the paper, /Three Deviations for AI in Spike Jonze’s Her/
<http://www.deletionscifi.org/episodes/episode-9/three-deviations-for-ai-in-spike-jonzes-her/>, 

Thao Phan
<http://www.deletionscifi.org/episodes/episode-9/three-deviations-for-ai-in-spike-jonzes-her/> 
provides
a close reading of scenes from Jonze’s most recent film, concentrating
for the most part on an analysis of the depiction of AI’s in science
fiction cinema, and in the film Her in particular. Fictional AIs most
often display the characteristics we associate with the Western
rationalist, instrumentalist tradition: rule-based logic, algorithmic
processing and pattern recognition, all “foregrounded as qualifiers for
‘intelligence’ in popular culture” as Phan says. All of these qualities
are “cold… unalloyed by emotions but also unalloyed by fleshy exteriors
that can remind us of any connection they might have to the natural
world”. Yet (Scarlett Johansson’s voice character of) Samantha is “is
inquisitive, curious, sensitive, and perceptive.”

Patricia Di Risio
<http://www.deletionscifi.org/episodes/episode-9/post-human-humanity-in-alien-resurrection/>‘s 

paper, /Post-human humanity in Alien: Resurrection
<http://www.deletionscifi.org/episodes/episode-9/post-human-humanity-in-alien-resurrection/>, 

/argues that an ideological agenda is promoted in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s
/Alien: Resurrection /by casting a queer couple as the responsible and
hopeful custodians of the future of the planet and the human race.
Further contending that the narrative structure and closing of /Alien:
Resurrection/ suggests that genuine humanity is, in fact, more likely to
be found in a future populated by the post-human.

Djoymi Baker
<http://www.deletionscifi.org/episodes/episode-9/tactile-memories-of-an-alternate-past-in-never-let-me-go/>’s 

paper, /Tactile Memories of an Alternative Past in Never Let Me Go
<http://www.deletionscifi.org/episodes/episode-9/tactile-memories-of-an-alternate-past-in-never-let-me-go/>,/ 
looks
at Mark Romanek’s 2010 film adaptation of Ishiguro’s novel through a
meditation on certain evocative objects within the films mise en scene,
suggesting that the “sensory array of the object” produces its own
narrative, a “narrative arising out of an object [that] clashes with the
alternate timeline of /Never Let Me Go/ that is both similar and
different to our own.

In his paper /Operating at Culture’s Margins Notes Towards An Aesthetics
of the Impact Zone: Beyond Crash and The Atrocity Exhibition/
<http://www.deletionscifi.org/episodes/episode-9/operating-at-cultures-margins-notes-towards-an-aesthetics-of-the-impact-zone-beyond-crash-and-the-atrocity-exhibition/>, 

Jack Sargeant
<http://www.deletionscifi.org/episodes/episode-9/operating-at-cultures-margins-notes-towards-an-aesthetics-of-the-impact-zone-beyond-crash-and-the-atrocity-exhibition/> 
explores
his published works on J.G Ballard and the original film version of
‘Crash!’. His paper looks at Ballard in relation to the extent aesthetic
‘perversions’ that emerged around these two ground breaking books.
Looking at Ballard’s work in relation to the short film Crash! live
performance / readings, exhibitions, and adverts, this experimental
paper explores the radical and experimental work of Ballard, tracing its
influences into wider 1970s subcultures.​

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