Technovisuality ─ Cultural Re-Enchantment and the Experience of Technology

How should we regard the contemporary proliferation of images? Today, visual information is available as projected, printed and on-screen imagery, in the forms of video games, scientific data, virtual environments and architectural renderings. Fearful and anti-visualist responses to this phenomenon abound. Spread by digital technologies, images are thought to threaten the word and privilege surface value over content. Yet as they multiply, images face unprecedented competition for attention. This book explores the opportunities that can arise from the ubiquity of visual stimuli. It reveals that ‘technovisuality’—the fusion of digital technology with the visual—can work ‘wonders’; not so much dazzling audiences with special effects as reviving our enchantment with popular culture. Introducing a new term for an entirely new field of academic study, this book reveals the centrality of ‘technovisuality’ in 21st century life.

Helen Grace is Associate Professor in the Department of Gender & Cultural Studies and Research Affiliate in the Sydney College of the Arts, at the University of Sydney. Previously, she established the MA Programme in Visual Culture Studies at Chinese University of Hong Kong as a visiting scholar.