12 research outputs found

    The Virtual Worlds of Cinema Visual Effects, Simulation, and the Aesthetics of Cinematic Immersion

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    This thesis develops a phenomenology of immersive cinematic spectatorship. During an immersive experience in the cinema, the images, sounds, events, emotions, and characters that form a fictional diegesis become so compelling that our conscious experience of the real world is displaced by a virtual world. Theorists and audiences have long recognized cinema’s ability to momentarily substitute for the lived experience of reality, but it remains an under-theorized aspect of cinematic spectatorship. The first aim of this thesis is therefore to examine these immersive responses to cinema from three perspectives – the formal, the technological, and the neuroscientific – to describe the exact mechanisms through which a spectator’s immersion in a cinematic world is achieved. A second aim is to examine the historical development of the technologies of visual simulation that are used to create these immersive diegetic worlds. My analysis shows a consistent increase in the vividness and transparency of simulative technologies, two factors that are crucial determinants in a spectator’s immersion. In contrast to the cultural anxiety that often surrounds immersive responses to simulative technologies, I examine immersive spectatorship as an aesthetic phenomenon that is central to our engagement with cinema. The ubiquity of narrative – written, verbal, cinematic – shows that the ability to achieve immersion is a fundamental property of the human mind found in cultures diverse in both time and place. This thesis is thus an attempt to illuminate this unique human ability and examine the technologies that allow it to flourish

    Calibrage de caméra fisheye et estimation de la profondeur pour la navigation autonome

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    Ce mémoire s’intéresse aux problématiques du calibrage de caméras grand angles et de l’estimation de la profondeur à partir d’une caméra unique, immobile ou en mouvement. Les travaux effectués se situent à l’intersection entre la vision 3D classique et les nouvelles méthodes par apprentissage profond dans le domaine de la navigation autonome. Ils visent à permettre la détection d’obstacles par un drone en mouvement muni d’une seule caméra à très grand angle de vue. D’abord, une nouvelle méthode de calibrage est proposée pour les caméras fisheyes à très grand angle de vue par calibrage planaire à correspondances denses obtenues par lumière structurée qui peuvent être modélisée par un ensemble de caméras génériques virtuelles centrales. Nous démontrons que cette approche permet de modéliser directement des caméras axiales, et validons sur des données synthétiques et réelles. Ensuite, une méthode est proposée pour estimer la profondeur à partir d’une seule image, à partir uniquement des indices de profondeurs forts, les jonctions en T. Nous démontrons que les méthodes par apprentissage profond sont susceptibles d’apprendre les biais de leurs ensembles de données et présentent des lacunes d’invariance. Finalement, nous proposons une méthode pour estimer la profondeur à partir d’une caméra en mouvement libre à 6 degrés de liberté. Ceci passe par le calibrage de la caméra fisheye sur le drone, l’odométrie visuelle et la résolution de la profondeur. Les méthodes proposées permettent la détection d’obstacle pour un drone.This thesis focuses on the problems of calibrating wide-angle cameras and estimating depth from a single camera, stationary or in motion. The work carried out is at the intersection between traditional 3D vision and new deep learning methods in the field of autonomous navigation. They are designed to allow the detection of obstacles by a moving drone equipped with a single camera with a very wide field of view. First, a new calibration method is proposed for fisheye cameras with very large field of view by planar calibration with dense correspondences obtained by structured light that can be modelled by a set of central virtual generic cameras. We demonstrate that this approach allows direct modeling of axial cameras, and validate it on synthetic and real data. Then, a method is proposed to estimate the depth from a single image, using only the strong depth cues, the T-junctions. We demonstrate that deep learning methods are likely to learn from the biases of their data sets and have weaknesses to invariance. Finally, we propose a method to estimate the depth from a camera in free 6 DoF motion. This involves calibrating the fisheye camera on the drone, visual odometry and depth resolution. The proposed methods allow the detection of obstacles for a drone

    Screen Space Reconfigured

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    Screen Space Reconfigured is the first edited volume that critically and theoretically examines the many novel renderings of space brought to us by 21st century screens. Exploring key cases such as post-perspectival space, 3D, vertical framing, haptics, and layering, this volume takes stock of emerging forms of screen space and spatialities as they move from the margins to the centre of contemporary media practice.Recent years have seen a marked scholarly interest in spatial dimensions and conceptions of moving image culture, with some theorists claiming that a 'spatial turn' has taken place in media studies and screen practices alike. Yet this is the first book-length study dedicated to on-screen spatiality as such.Spanning mainstream cinema, experimental film, video art, mobile screens, and stadium entertainment, the volume includes contributions from such acclaimed authors as Giuliana Bruno and Tom Gunning as well as a younger generation of scholars

    Three-dimensional geometry characterization using structured light fields

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    Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Mecânica. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

    Sideshadow views : narrative possibilities in Charles Dickens's late novels

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    Cet essai discute du rôle de l’hypothétique (ce qui ne peut être proposé que comme une hypothèse) dans les huit derniers romans de Charles Dickens et de la variété des moyens littéraires utilisés pour l’invoquer. Dans toute communication fondée sur le langage, les mots sont énoncés (et entendus) ou écrits (et lus), l’un après l’autre, dans l’ordre qu’exige la grammaire. La linéarité et l’ordre de telles séquences semblent refléter naturellement une temporalité et une causalité régissant les évènements représentés. En fait, ceci ne peut rendre compte que de leur nécessité et de leur chronologie. Je soutiens que les romans considérés recourent à des actions, des idées, des évènements, des perspectives, des voix, etc. hypothétiques, pour dépasser les limites imposées par le déterminisme apparemment inhérent aux structures narratives. Dans les mondes fictionnels de Dickens, le présent n’est pas la simple conséquence du passé et ce qui arrive n’est pas seulement la conséquence nécessaire d’une cause suffisante. Ce qui se produit est souvent sans nécessité et aurait aussi bien pu ne pas se produire. Un tel évènement, quand il n’était encore qu’une possibilité, a été en concurrence avec d’autres possibilités jusqu’à ce que la chance décide de l’actualiser. Cette réalité contingente -- avec sa « charge » éthique, épistémologique et ontologique -- ne peut être représentée par le discours linéaire et chronologique de la téléologie. La représentation de la contingence exige l’insertion du réel et du spéculatif dans un tissu narratif composé de développements et d’évènements actuels et virtuels. C’est pourquoi, dans les romans de Dickens, l’invisible peut être montré, le silence peut être éloquent et ce qui est en pleine vue peut demeurer secret. D’autres histoires possibles contribuent toujours à l’intrigue. À diverses jonctions du récit, les chemins non empruntés ii pourraient avoir mené ailleurs. Des directions hypothétiques et des mises en intrigues imprécises définissent l’histoire aussi puissamment que les développements poursuivis. Pour produire un monde de possibilités aussi complexe, Dickens, non seulement ne s’en remet pas à une supposée qualité mimétique du langage, mais il envisage aussi la réalité qu’il représente comme un fait naturellement littéraire. Il ne cache pas son art ; bien au contraire, avec une créativité et une fertilité étonnante, il déploie avec flamboyance son habileté à jouer avec le langage, avec une rhétorique luxuriante et avec une profusion d’intrigues potentielles. Tout ce qui constitue l’extravagante économie narrative de Dickens est exposé en permanence et est partie inhérente du plaisir procuré à ses lecteurs. En introduction, je discute du recours de Dickens à l’hypothétique dans son interaction avec un important conflit idéologique de son époque, la confrontation de la téléologie créationniste avec l’indéterminisme existentiel de la théorie de l’évolution de Darwin. Dans les trois chapitres suivants, j’adresse la fonction de l’hypothétique dans les incipit de David Copperfied, A Tale of Two Cities et The Mystery of Edwin Drood. J’examine ensuite comment, maintenant l’angoisse épistémique sur la réalité engendrée dans l’incipit, l’hypothétique se propage au travers du roman, soulevant les questions sans souvent y répondre. Je conclus que dans les huit derniers romans de Dickens -- et je suggère que cela est sans doute le cas pour le roman moderne en général -- le recours à l’hypothétique participe à l’acquisition d’une vérité littéraire, parce que, après tout, la littérature -- comme la science et la philosophie -- est une forme d’expérimentation avec la réalité.This essay discusses the role of the hypothetical – that which can be proposed only as a hypothesis -- in Charles Dickens’s last eight novels and the variety of literary means used to invoke it. In any language-based communication, words are uttered (and heard) or written (and read), one after the other, in the order that grammar demands. The linearity and order of such sequences seem to reflect naturally a temporality and a causality governing the represented events. In fact, this can only account for their necessity and their chronology. I argue that the novels under consideration make use of hypothetical and counterfactual actions, thoughts, events, perspectives, voices, etc., in order to overcome the limits imposed by the determinism apparently inherent to narrative structures. In Dickens’s fictional worlds, the present is not the simple consequence of the past and what happens is not only the necessary consequence of a sufficient cause. What happens is often without necessity and could as well not have happened. Such an event, when it was still only a possibility, competed with other unnecessary possibilities until chance decided its actualization. This contingent reality -- with its ethical, epistemological and ontological “payload” -- cannot be represented by the linear discourse of teleology. The representation of contingency demands the insertion of the real and the speculative in a narrative fabric woven out of virtual and actual developments and events. That is why, in Dickens’s novels, the unseen can be shown, silence can be eloquent, and what is in plain view can remain secret. Other possible stories always contribute to the plot. At various forks in the narrative, paths not taken could have led elsewhere. Hypothetical directions and indistinct emplotments define the narrative as powerfully as the developments that are pursued. iv To produce such a complex world of possibilities, Dickens not only refuses to rely upon a supposed mimetic quality of language, but he also contemplates the reality that he represents as a natural literary fact. He does not conceal his art. On the contrary, with an amazing fertility and inventiveness, he makes a lavish display of his capacity to play with language, with rhetorical flourish and with potential lines of emplotment. Everything that constitutes Dickens’s wild narrative economy is always on permanent display and is an inherent part of the pleasure procured for his readership. In the introduction, I discuss Dickens’s recourse to the hypothetical in its interaction with an important ideological conflict of his time -- the confrontation of the creationist teleology with the existential indeterminism of broadly Darwinian evolution theory. In the next three chapters, I address the function of the hypothetical in the incipits of David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I then examine how, by sustaining the epistemic anxiety generated in the incipit, the hypothetical propagates across the novel, raising questions without often answering them. I conclude that in Dickens’s last eight novels -- and, I suggest that this may also be the case in the modern novel in general -- the recourse to the hypothetical participates in the acquisition of a literary truth, because, after all, literature -- like science and philosophy -- is just another way to experiment with reality

    Writing the Unknown : Fiction, Reality, and the Supernatural in the Late-Nineteenth Century Short Story (Machado, James, Maupassant)

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    This dissertation offers a comparative perspective on the supernatural short stories of Machado de Assis, Henry James, and Guy de Maupassant written in the final decades of the nineteenth century. Contextualizing my close interpretation of the texts in this historical period, which corresponds to the birth of the modern short story and, at the same time, of the modern fantastic, I argue that notwithstanding their differences, which are also taken into consideration, these three authors similarly explore the supernatural as a subgenre that given its intrinsic association with the unnatural and, by extension, with the unknown, allows them to approach, through fiction, the various dimensions of an epistemological problem. But this epistemological problem is intimately connected with the nature and experience of literary language, which these authors consistently represent, thematize, and even allegorize in their supernatural short stories. Thus, the main goal of this dissertation is not to arrive at a strict definition of the late-nineteenth century supernatural story, but to investigate the ways in which, in different linguistic, cultural, and literary contexts, the genre resists stabilization and problematizes itself in a constant correlation with various notions of “fiction” and “reality”, as exemplified in the literary as well as critical works of Machado, James, and Maupassant. In this sense, this study distances itself from more habitual approaches that tend to analyze these authors as more or less non-conforming cases of the “fantastic” proper. Instead, I focus on how they explore and renovate the genre through the employment of diverse formal and/or narrative elements — namely, the use of multiple diegetic levels, the figuration of ghostly manuscripts, and the metaliterary representation of writing — which together contribute to form a common notion of “supernatural textuality” that has largely escaped critical attention. My final objective is to demonstrate that a close analysis of these typically neglected texts shows that they are “modern”, also, and above all, because they rhetorically, structurally, and thematically formulate an implicit reflection on literature that focuses on its imaginative ability to represent the unreal by giving shape to the unknown.Esta dissertação oferece uma perspectiva comparativa dos contos sobrenaturais de Machado de Assis, Henry James e Guy de Maupassant escritos nas últimas décadas do Século XIX. Contextualizando uma interpretação aproximada dos textos neste período histórico, que corresponde ao do nascimento do conto moderno e, ao mesmo tempo, do fantástico moderno, sugiro que, não obstante as diferenças entre eles, que são também tomadas em consideração, estes três autores exploram o sobrenatural como um subgénero que, graças à sua associação intrínseca com o não-natural e, por extensão, com o desconhecido, lhes permite abordar, através da ficção, várias dimensões de um problema epistemológico. Contudo, este problema epistemológico está intimamente ligado à natureza e à experiência da linguagem literária, que estes autores consistentemente representam, tematizam e até alegorizam nos seus contos sobrenaturais. Assim, o objectivo principal desta dissertação não é chegar a uma definição restrita do conto sobrenatural do fim do século XIX, mas investigar os meios através dos quais, em diferentes contextos linguísticos, culturais e literários, este género resiste à estabilização e se problematiza a si mesmo numa contante correlação com diversas noções de “ficção” e “realidade”; correlação que parece paradigmática nos textos literários e críticos de Machado, James e Maupassant. Neste sentido, este estudo distancia-se de abordagens mais habituais, que tendem a analisar estes autores enquanto casos mais ou menos conformes com o estrito “fantástico”. Em vez disso, esta análise observa de que maneira eles exploram e renovam o género através da utilização de diversos elementos formais ou narrativos — nomeadamente, a multiplicação de níveis diegéticos, a figuração de manuscritos fantasma e a representação meta-literária da escrita — que, contribuem para formar uma noção comum de “textualidade sobrenatural”, a qual tem escapado à atenção da crítica. O meu objectivo final é demonstrar que uma leitura atenta destes textos tipicamente negligenciados mostra que eles são também, e sobretudo, “modernos”, porque formulam retoricamente, estruturalmente e tematicamente uma reflexão implícita sobre a literatura que incide sobre a sua capacidade de representar o irreal e, assim, dar forma ao desconhecido

    Screen Genealogies

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    Against the grain of the growing literature on screens, *Screen Genealogies* argues that the present excess of screens cannot be understood as an expansion and multiplication of the movie screen nor of the video display. Rather, screens continually exceed the optical histories in which they are most commonly inscribed. As contemporary screens become increasingly decomposed into a distributed field of technologically interconnected surfaces and interfaces, we more readily recognize the deeper spatial and environmental interventions that have long been a property of screens. For most of its history, a screen was a filter, a divide, a shelter, or a camouflage. A genealogy stressing transformation and descent rather than origins and roots emphasizes a deeper set of intersecting and competing definitions of the screen, enabling new thinking about what the screen might yet become

    Jean Epstein

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    Filmmaker and theoretician Jean Epstein profoundly influenced film practice, criticism and reception in France during the 1920s and well beyond. His work not only forms the crux of the debates of his time, but also remains key to understanding later developments in film practice and theory. Epstein' s film criticism is among the most wide-ranging, provocative and poetic writing about cinema and his often breathtaking films offer insights into cinema and the experience of modernity. This collection - the first comprehensive study in English of Epstein's far-reaching influence - arrives as several of the concerns most central to Epstein' s work are being reexamined, including theories of perception, realism, and the relationship between cinema and other arts. The volume also includes new translations from every major theoretical work Epstein published, presenting the widest possible historical and contextual range of Epstein' s work, from his beginnings as a biology student and literary critic to his late film projects and posthumously published writings.Filmmaker en -theoreticus Jean Epstein beïnvloedde sterk de filmpraktijk, -kritiek en -receptie in Frankrijk en ver daarbuiten tijdens de jaren twintig van de vorige eeuw. Zijn werk vormde niet alleen de kern van de debatten in die tijd, maar is ook een sleutel voor het begrijpen van latere ontwikkelingen in de filmpraktijk en -theorie. Epsteins filmkritieken zijn uiteenlopende, uitdagende en poëtisch geschreven teksten, en zijn vaak adembenemende films bieden belangrijke en moderne inzichten in de cinema. Dit boek verschijnt op het moment dat een aantal van de thema' s die centraal staan in het werk van Epstein opnieuw wordt onderzocht, met inbegrip van de theorie van de waarneming, realisme en de relatie tussen cinema en de andere kunsten. De kritische essays vormen een waardevolle inleiding tot het creatieve oeuvre van Epstein

    Jean Epstein

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    Filmmaker and theoretician Jean Epstein profoundly influenced film practice, criticism and reception in France during the 1920s and well beyond. His work not only forms the crux of the debates of his time, but also remains key to understanding later developments in film practice and theory. Epstein' s film criticism is among the most wide-ranging, provocative and poetic writing about cinema and his often breathtaking films offer insights into cinema and the experience of modernity. This collection - the first comprehensive study in English of Epstein's far-reaching influence - arrives as several of the concerns most central to Epstein' s work are being reexamined, including theories of perception, realism, and the relationship between cinema and other arts. The volume also includes new translations from every major theoretical work Epstein published, presenting the widest possible historical and contextual range of Epstein' s work, from his beginnings as a biology student and literary critic to his late film projects and posthumously published writings
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