Graduation Year

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Degree Granting Department

Humanities and Cultural Studies

Major Professor

Todd Jurgess, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Scott Ferguson, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Amy Rust, Ph.D.

Keywords

money, abstraction, globalization, neoliberalism

Abstract

Film and media theory has been fundamentally altered by the advent of digital technology, both in terms of film production and broader aesthetic overtures but also in terms of greater digital mediation. Blackhat (Michael Mann, 2015), although not a commercial or critical success, articulates many of the exact circumstances and broader consequences of digital technology in relation to its digital video aesthetics but also its narratives content involving global telecommunication and data systems. As a wholly digital film, Blackhat is uniquely situated to speak not only developments in digital filmmaking but also, by way of its plot line involving stateless international actors perpetrating malware attacks and stock market hacks, broader developments involving global information systems and finance markets. This project turns to discourse surround the cinematic index as well as heterodox economics to fully explicate the ramifications of Blackout’s form and content in relation to phenomenology, abstraction, and haecceity.

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