Camera Creatures: Rhetorics of Light and Emerging Media

Camera Creatures addresses the new media landscape in which cameras, in most situations, outnumber pens. The dissertation argues that despite the accessibility and power of imagemaking devices, there persists in the humanities and social sciences a hesitation to engage the possibilities for composing with optical media. A number of factors contributing to this trend are addressed, including the preference for image analysis over imagemaking practices, persistent assumptions of the camera\u27s mechanical objectivity, and a tendency to teach visual invention as collage. As a counter-measure, a proposal is made for investment in the mediation of light, or \u27photonic rhetorics.\u27 To explore these effects in visual communication and the possibility of bringing them into practice, three emerging camera technologies are examined. The first, the photo app, focuses on the controversy surrounding embedded journalists who use social networks and the Hipstamatic camera phone application to relay stories of U.S. Marines deployed in Afghanistan. The chapter argues that the filters and shooting styles of these mobile apps encourage fluencies in the persuasive effects of light. The second camera technology, the video clip, addresses the long take as the predominant technique of everyday video-making. Film theory, video sharing trends, and circadian science contribute to a discussion of the rhythms of long-take shooting and its capability to expose both visual habits and the contingencies capable of disrupting them. The third site turns to video game \u27shooters\u27 and the virtual camera\u27s construction of \u27surrogate vision,\u27 which the author argues is a critical tool for understanding the future of mediated interactivity in both physical and digital landscapes. The dissertation concludes with a pedagogical section devoted to conscientious cheating. Alongside theories of deliberate practice, \u27cheating\u27 is repurposed for education, offering new ways of testing the \u27rules\u27 of optical composition while discovering opportunities to intervene in light\u27s constant mediation of perception

Review of Dark Energy: Hitchcock’s Absolute Camera and the Physics of Cinematic Spacetime

Skerry’s Dark Energy draws from astrophysics’ most popular and intriguing concepts—from Eisenstein’s theories of relativity to questions surrounding the expanding universe—and trace them metaphorically through Hitchcock’s films

Synthesis and structure of a hydrogenated zinc hemiporphyrazine

Palladium-catalyzed hydrogenation of an octahedral zinc trans-ditriflate hemiporphyrazine “HpH2Zn(OTf)2” furnishes a new macrocycle “HpH6Zn(OTf)2”. This reaction is fully reversible upon heating in nitrobenzene, and the conversion is easily monitored by changes in color and fluorescence properties. The reversible cycling between these molecules may find future applications in hemiporphyrazine-based catalysts and/or hydrogen storage devices

Excitonic luminescence of hemiporphyrazines

Metal-free hemiporphyrazine (HpH2) is a notoriously insoluble material possessing interesting photophysical properties. Here we report the synthesis, structure, and photophysical properties of an octahedral zinc trans-ditriflate hemiporphyrazine complex “HpH2Zn(OTf)2” that contains a neutral hemiporphyrazine ligand. The photophysical properties of hemiporphyrazine are largely unaffected by introduction of zinc(II) triflate, but a dramatic increase in solubility is observed. HpH2Zn(OTf)2 therefore provides a convenient model system to evaluate the impact of aggregation on the photophysical properties of hemiporphyrazine. Soluble aggregates and crystalline materials containing planar hemiporphyrazines exhibit relatively strong absorbance of visible light (450–600 nm) and red luminescence (600–700 nm). Hemiporphyrazine monohydrate (HpH2·H2O), in contrast, has a nonplanar “saddle-shaped” conformation that exhibits very little absorbance of visible light in solution or in the solid state. Upon photoexcitation at 380 nm, HpH2Zn(OTf)2 and HpH2 exhibit multiwavelength emissions centered at 450 and 650 nm. Emissions at 450 nm are highly anisotropic, while emissions at 650 nm are fully depolarized with respect to a plane-polarized excitation source. Taken together, our results suggest that excitonic coupling of aggregated and crystalline hemiporphyrazines results in increased absorbance and emission of visible light from S0 ↔ S1 transitions that are usually symmetry forbidden in isolated species. In contrast to previously proposed theories involving excited-state intramolecular proton transfer, we propose that the multiple-wavelength luminescent emissions of HpH2Zn(OTf)2 and HpH2 are due to emissive S1 and S2 states in aggregated and crystalline hemiporphyrazines. These results may provide a better understanding of the nonlinear optical properties of these materials in solution and in the solid state