BAFTSS Horror Studies SIG
Dead Media: Contemporary Horror and The Analogue
Saturday 13th January 2024 / online
While the ‘dead’ in ‘dead media’ evokes themes of death and haunting situated at the heart of the genre, the term is also indebted to media archaeology and Bruce Sterling’s Dead Media Project, an archive of obsolete technologies initiated in the 1990s as digital formats began to take off and take over from analogue. Much existing scholarly work has explored the cultural contexts and the collection, distribution and reception of analogue media forms such as vinyl, video, and obsolete or outdated modes of photography and film. But less attention has been given to how dead media objects now function within the contemporary horror genre and its diegeses.
Horror has, of course, always been quick to reflect the threats of new technology, and haunted, cursed, or dangerous media has provided fertile ground for horror narratives. But a recent raft of films (V/H/S/94, Antrum), series (Dead Wax, Archive 81), games (Outlast, Fatal Frame), podcasts (Video Palace) and web series (Local 58) use analogue objects at the centre of their narratives to explore the malevolent possibilities of dead media in the digital age. Many of these examples, along with others within music, literature, and visual art also utilise analogue aesthetics such as glitches, static or other forms of media degradation. In contemporary horror, dead media is utilised in various ways: as an object of nostalgia, as a reverent nod to the genre’s past, to forefront a gritty analogue aesthetic, or to engage with the horror of recording, repeating and recycling—ever more relevant in our hypermediated world. Programme and Schedule
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VideosIntroductions and Panel One -
Streaming Screams: Online Analogue Panel Two -
Ghostly Glitches: Games and Analogue Panel Three
Abject Objects: Film, Television and Analogue 1 Panel Four -
Nightmare Noises: Audio and Analogue Panel Five -
Tracking (T)errors: Film, Television and Analogue 2 |