Binary, coded On the 'absence' of the digital in Strange Days

Given its release amidst the domestic proliferation of computing, gaming and the internet, Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days is curiously devoid of overt references to digital media. Despite this apparent lacuna, Strange Days reveals itself to be deeply concerned with the implications of new media technologies in the contemporary moment. It articulates a reflexive response to new media's promises of immediacy, presence and interaction, and the implications of these emergent modalities for cinema and spectatorship. In particular, the film's narrative and aesthetic representation of 'SQUID' - a pseudo-cinematic media form which exceeds audiovisual spectatorship - highlights productive intersections between character and spectator, vision and sensation, past and present, old and new media.