Finance Capital and the Aesthetics of Speculation
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Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Film, Media & Theatre Dissertations School of Film, Media & Theatre 5-6-2019 Figures of Conspiracy: Finance Capital and the Aesthetics of Speculation John Roberts [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/fmt_dissertations Recommended Citation Roberts, John, "Figures of Conspiracy: Finance Capital and the Aesthetics of Speculation." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2019. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/fmt_dissertations/6 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Film, Media & Theatre at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Film, Media & Theatre Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FIGURES OF CONSPIRACY: FINANCE CAPITAL AND THE AESTHETICS OF SPECULATION by JOHN W. ROBERTS Under the Direction of Angelo Restivo, Ph.D. ABSTRACT This dissertation intervenes to theorize the implications of late 20 th and early 21 st century economic financialization for media studies and visual culture by considering the ways in which both the contemporary economy and contemporary culture share a central emphasis on speculation, a term which ambivalently refers both to the capacity to see, as well as the capacity to hypothesize and imagine. The central issue at stake is the question of how imaginary, speculative, and representational values in the economy can have real effects not only on stock prices but also on the material conditions of lived experience of individuals, as in the emblematic case of the 2008 global financial crisis. To answer this question, the dissertation develops a theory of the figural, drawing on the writings of Erich Auerbach, Gilles Deleuze, Walter Benjamin, and others, in order to explain how abstract processes of speculation can come to have concrete, material consequences. At stake is the notion that social reality and aesthetics are intimately imbricated through figural relations. Consequently, it is to mediated aesthetic renderings of the process of speculation that the dissertation looks to locate and comprehend these economic and cultural transformations. I focus on objects that deal centrally with conspiracy and investigation, which I argue following Fredric Jameson is the dominant representational locus of the cultural imagination of global finance. Body chapters contain close formal analyses of the amateur conspiracy chart style known as “Chart Brut,” the medical mystery television series House M.D. , the found-footage horror film Sinister , and the videos news thriller Nightcrawler . A conclusion considers how the film Arrival constellates the formal and thematic issues at stake in the body chapters together into a potentially unified figure. INDEX WORDS: Financialization, Figurality, Conspiracy, Diagram, Detection FIGURES OF CONSPIRACY: FINANCE CAPITAL AND THE AESTHETICS OF SPECULATION by JOHN W. ROBERTS A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of the Arts Georgia State University 2019 Copyright by John William Roberts 2019 FIGURES OF CONSPIRACY: FINANCE CAPITAL AND THE AESTHETICS OF SPECULATION by JOHN W. ROBERTS Committee Chair: Angelo Restivo Committee: Alessandra Raengo Jennifer Barker Fredric Jameson Electronic Version Approved: Office of Academic Assistance College of the Arts Georgia State University May 2019 iv DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, to my brother, and to Clare, who knows more than anyone the exact price of the risk that this project carried. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Augustine writes of his own membership in a kind of conspiracy, “But alone I would not have done it, could not conceivably have done it by myself.” This could not be more true of this project, which had help from many supporters along the way. I must first gratefully acknowledge the profound support of my advisor, Angelo Restivo, who encouraged me to play the go-for- broke game of cultural history. I would also like to thank the other members of my dissertation committee for their time and insight: Alessandra Raengo, Jennifer Barker, and Fredric Jameson. I am especially indebted to Dr. Raengo’s seminars and an independent study, which furnished the intellectual space in which much of the conceptual core of this project was formed. Lastly, I would like to recognize the immense support of my fellow graduate students and writing group companions for their support and friendship: Daren Fowler, Jenny Gunn, Cameron Kunzelman, and Jennifer Olive. Truly, I could not have done it alone. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................ V LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................... VIII 1 INTRODUCTION: THE FIGURAL LOGIC OF THE CONSPIRACY DIAGRAM..................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Blown Up Figures ................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Diagramming the Constellations of A Beautiful Mind ................................... 16 1.3 Speculative Capital ............................................................................................ 30 1.4 Speculative Aesthetics ....................................................................................... 35 1.5 The Schema, Diagram, The Abstract Machine .............................................. 42 1.6 Figural Constellations ....................................................................................... 48 1.7 Chapter Summaries .......................................................................................... 61 2 HISTORICITY, FIGURALITY, CONSPIRACY ................................................. 68 2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 68 2.2 Erich Auerbach’s Conspiracy Theory............................................................. 74 2.3 Chart Brut: Conspiracy Theory in Practice ................................................... 88 2.4 Conclusion: Julie Mehretu’s Speculative Gaze ............................................ 105 3 SCANNING THE NEOLIBERAL BRAIN: HOUSE M.D. AND THE BIOPOLITICAL T.V. SCREEN ............................................................................................. 112 3.1 Introduction: The Biopolitical T.V. Screen .................................................. 112 vii 3.2 Medical Imaging .............................................................................................. 129 3.3 Differential Diagnosis as Risk Management ................................................. 145 3.4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 155 4 “YOU CAN NEVER EXPLAIN SOMETHING LIKE THIS”: NARRATIVE AND ECONOMIC SPECULATION IN SINISTER ............................................................. 158 4.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 158 4.2 Recession Anxiety, or the Haunted House .................................................... 167 4.3 Spectatorship as Surveillance, Surveillance as Labor ................................. 176 4.4 Media Transition and the Hauntology of the Digital ................................... 186 4.5 Conclusion: Speculation, Theory ................................................................... 193 5 “DO YOU KNOW WHAT FEAR STANDS FOR?” RACIALIZED EMBODIMENT AND ABSTRACTION IN NIGHTCRAWLER ......................................... 197 5.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 197 5.2 Boundary Transgression and Spatial Reconfiguration ............................... 200 5.3 Valorization and Racialization ....................................................................... 214 5.4 Financialization and the Derivative Form .................................................... 227 6 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 236 REFERENCES .............................................................................................................. 252 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1 Blow Up......................................................................................................................... 1 Figure 1.2 Blow Up......................................................................................................................... 3 Figure 1.3 Blow Up......................................................................................................................... 7 Figure 1.4 The New Yorker ............................................................................................................ 9 Figure 1.5 All the President’s Men ............................................................................................... 20 Figure 1.6 The Parallax View ....................................................................................................... 21 Figure 1.7 A Beautiful Mind ........................................................................................................