the morph-image: the subjunctive synthesis of time

In The Morph-Image: The Subjunctive Synthesis of Time, Steen Ledet Christiansen argues for a new model of digital cinema that draws on Deleuzian and Whiteheadian insights into time and the future. This model insists that the philosophy of time must be rethought to provide a better understanding of the future and that the digital capacities of post-cinema present occasions of thought well-suited to this task. The figure of the morph, Christiansen posits, allows a conception of how post-cinema expresses time as a means of capture that appears liberatory, but modulates subjectivities into temporal forms of control. These temporal forms include digital animacies, flows, loops, synthetic long takes, and disjunctive editing, all of which are false formations of freedom. Ultimately, the author positions the unruly creativity of an event’s potential, of making the impossible possible in order to bring about true advancements into novelty, as escape from this dynamic. This book contributes to both Deleuzian film theory and a burgeoning Whiteheadian film-philosophy through deep engagement with key post-cinematic films, including Holy Motors, Collateral, Domino, Limitless, Spring Breakers, and Everything Everywhere All at Once. In doing so, important concepts of potentiality, actuality, and the future are considered and addressed in relation to the contemporary capitalist regime of control.

Steen Ledet Christiansen is professor of culture, media, and aesthetics at Aalborg University, Denmark.