20 March 2019 @ 4:00 pm

The Aesthetics of Framelessness

Everywhere the figure of the frame is in crisis: frames delimit and shape – in the realm of the media they are synonymous with bias and partiality. Emerging technologies of representation like VR, AR, and 360-cameras work toward dispensing with the figure of the frame, invoking the ambition to capture, record, and represent ‘everything.’

In this forum talk, Mark Andrejevic considered some of the logics at work in the aspiration toward ‘framelessness’. As Kevin Kelly suggests, ‘frameless’ representation relies on the automation of information capture and the redoubling of the world in digital form. Such an aspiration raises certain concerns – not just about privacy but also about what might be described as the ‘bias’ of automation. This presentation explored three aspects of this bias, the social and cultural impacts of these biases, and their implications for the function of representation.

This forum took place on 20 March.

A recording of Mark Andrejevic's forum talk

Mark Andrejevic is Professor of Media Studies in the School of Media, Film, and Journalism. He is the author of Infoglut: How Too Much Information is Changing the Way We Think and Know; iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era; and Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched, as well as numerous articles and book chapters. He is currently writing a book titled Automated Media.