This book dives into the mise-en-scène of contemporary China to explore the becoming cinema of Chinese cities, societies, and subjectivities. Set in the wake of Chinas radical and rapid period of urbanization and infrastructural transformation, and situating itself in the processual city of Ningbo, the book combines empirical, ficto-critical, and philosophical methods to generate a dynamic account of everyday life as new forms of consumer culture bed in. Harnessing a Realist approach that allows for different scales of analysis, the book zooms in on five architectural assemblages including: surreal real estate showrooms; a fragmented history museum; Chinas first and best Sino-foreign university; a new Old town; and weird gamified any-now(here)-spaces. Together these modern arrangements and machines for living cast light upon the broader picture sweeping up greater China.

         

David H. Fleming is Senior Lecturer in the Communication, Media and Culture division at the University of Stirling, Scotland. He is co-author ofThe Squid Cinema from Hell: Kinoteuthis Infernalis and the Emergence of Chthulhumediawith William Brown (2020), and the author ofUnbecoming Cinema(2017).

Simon Harrison is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong. He is author ofThe Impulse to Gesture: Where Language, Minds, and Bodies Intersect (2018).

     

1. Introduction.- 2. Shi-Story and Theory.- 3. Commercial Overground Shi-Nema: Some Notes onCinematicity and Its Propensity for Selling Dream (Un) Real Estate in Contemporary China.- 4. In-dependent Art Shi-Nema: Decomposing the Main Melody via Monu-mental Time-Images.- 5. Transnational Sci-Fi Shi-nema: Or, Diary Notes from Westworld Regarding Neoliberal Dulosis, Academic Automatons and the Franchised Post-historical University in the Era of Global Excellence.- 6. Shi-Nematic Games (Casino Capitalism).- 7. Epilogue: Disneyfied Dreamwork Shinema-Tracing a New "Old" Path Through the Inauthentic "Traditional.