Newhouse Fellows Series: Weihong Bao

Inside the Mind of the Influencing Machine: Set Design in the Age of Television

This talk considers "influence" as an atmospheric notion of media that binds mind and society at the onset of the Cold War and the rise of television. Influence, in this context, does not entail a one way traffic but a structure of interdependence, relying on a new notion of set design that orchestrates a system of responses and reactions that produces resonances and dissonances, signal and noise. Situated at the early era of the People's Republic (1949—) in the decade between the ideological campaign of Thought Reform (1951-1952) and Great Leap Forward (1958-1962) movement, I examine how the "cool media" of television (McLuhan) reconfigures set design through a new set of technological and human assembly.

With this framework, I return to the site of television production, not as the origin of signal dissemination, but the node where issues of transmission, amplification, and reception informs and shapes the very production process. This understanding of television as wireless and human infrastructure reveals how the celebrated liveness and immediacy of television involved the intricate task of coordination and synchronization, putting a new demand on human attention and labor with implications on acting, directing, and editing. Probing the influencing machinery and aesthetics of television in connection with other media, my talk highlights the tension intrinsic to influence caught between a climatic regime of power and aesthetic operations of resonances, between spatial-temporal axes of enclosure and porosity, stasis and motion. 

This event is free and open to the public. No prior registration is required for Wellesley College faculty, staff, and students.

This talk will be livestreamed via Zoom. To register for virtual attendance, please click here.