Shi-nematic Afterimages: Semiocapitalism and Chinese cine-cities

Abstract

In this essay we revisit our interdisciplinary approach to the "becoming-cinema" of Chinese life and cities in the contemporary era, while critically revisiting our notion of "shi-nema" (which combines the Chinese concept of "shi" (势) with a detoured notion of “cinematicity") which we forward as a provocative "image for thought" that explodes the concerns of modern film studies. Revisiting our multi-scalar fractal method, on this outing we specifically engage with a nexus of new semiocapitalist images and urban sites/sights that foreground how rapidly the psychogeographic circumstances in post socialist Chinese cine-cities evolve and mutate. Our essay opens with a fresh film-philosophy conceptualisation of "afterimages," blending cinematic, city, and conceptual varieties before moving on to critically engage with a new constellation of interviews and images drawn from Chinese film, television, streaming platforms, social media, and commercial real estate apps.