On Contemporary Image-Making: Celebrity Holograms, Tricky Ghosts, and Other Technologies of Political Bodies
Appeared In: transmediale
Publication Date: January 30, 2023
In this essay, Dhaliwal provides a particularly captivating account of the image, both in terms of likeness and public perception, as cultivated by various celebrities and their public relation management firms. Dhaliwal, a media theorist, science studies scholar, programmer, and literary critic, draws upon his varied backgrounds to trace one strand of the history of the use of holographic imaging—as representation—in order to construct a public image—as conceived by the masses. Bringing together (often dead) celebrity holograms, ghostly parlor tricks, and cyberpunk author William Gibson’s first published story, “Fragments of a Hologram Rose,” Dhaliwal’s writing narrates the unexpected encounters between the colonial and post-colonial deployments of technological mediations.
Dhaliwal, Ranjodh Singh. “On Contemporary Image-Making: Celebrity Holograms, Tricky Ghosts, and Other Technologies of Political Bodies.” transmediale journal, 2023.