麻豆传媒AV

Citation

Fleming D (2019) Actant en Set: Regarding two or three oneified bodies of {D?mhnal Gleeson}. Film-Philosophy, Film-Philosophy Conference, University of Brighton, UK., 09.07.2019-11.07.2019.

Abstract
The knotty relationship emerging between a screen-actor and their fictional characters has fascinated theorists and philosophers since the advent of cinema. Indeed, amongst countless others Andre Bazin, Richard Dyer, and Johannes Riis have all weighed in on the debate. Resonating with Stanley Cavell’s views about Bogart, Leo Braudy saw stars accruing a form of ‘residual’ self-image, ‘which the actor, the scriptwriter, and the director can play as they wish.’ Recalling Gilles Deleuze’s description of the actor-character as a monstrous and mutating conjoined-twin, Edgar Morin noted that when a given star incarnates himself in a character, the character also ‘become incarnate in him.’ Building on such views, this paper maintains that set theory not only opens up a valuable new vantage onto this phenomena, but also helps describe the operations of another ‘body’ form increasingly found performing within real and fictional milieus today, to wit: the data body. The work of the Irish star Domhnal Gleeson here offers the ideal focaliser, not least because in Black Mirror ‘s ‘Be Right Back’ (Owen Harris, 2013) episode and Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2014) Gleeson embodies everyman characters whose commodified social network data and internet browsing history are exploited by corporations associated with AI development. In the former, a lifetime of SMS interactions are bestowed with new algorithmic agency after his character’s death, eventually becoming uploaded into an uncanny biotech-cyborg purchased by his widow. In Ex Machina, the online history of Gleeson’s unwitting programmer is data-mined to help anticipate and/or manipulate his actions and responses in an upturned Turing test. Besides the obvious and interesting intertextual dialogue emerging between these two films and performances, the relationship between data structures and agential algorithms, when detoured through set theory, also helps cast fresh light on the operations of the actor-character hypernarrative/continuum in our digitised era.