A Mediated Family is a Happy Family:

J. G. Ballards Intensive Care Unit

J E F F W. M A R K E R

ISUAL CULTURE AND THE TECHNOLOGIES ESSENTIAL TO IT HAVE HAD

significant impact on the industrialized world for over one

hundred years now. We increasingly define our existence in
filmic terms, a symptom of the extent to which film and its descendants pervade our daily lives, and the act of making a motion picture
record is practically intrinsic to any public event, regardless of scale.
The words spoken by the filmmaker in Don DeLillos The Names ring
true: Weve come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing
can be filmed, film is implied in the thing itself (qtd. in Black 7). The
cinema, television, film publicity and merchandising, the internet,
home video cameras, security cameras, and video gamesall of which
we will classify as constituents of visual culturehave become ubiquitous in so-called developed societies around the world. The spread
of visual culture has proceeded hand in hand with the proliferation of
various means to mediate our communication with others ever more
easily, such as webcams, smartphones, and so on. This pervasion of
visual culture into our lives raises many questions about the influence
visual media have on us. For instance, is visual culture changing not
only the media through which we perceive our world, but also changing the manner in which we comprehend it? What are the psychological implications of the facts that more and more we both
understand actual phenomena in filmic terms and interact with other
human beings via various technological media?
In the near future of J. G. Ballards Intensive Care Unit, these
questions are answered explicitly. All aspects of the characters lives are

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mediated by camera and video monitor, even activities as fundamental

to human existence as childcare and sex. Ballards characters live in a
society in which the insinuation of visual culture into every human
relationship has destroyed the ability to interact without mediation.
The husband, wife, son, and daughter in Intensive Care Unit have
never been in the same room together. When the family attempts to
meet in person for the first time, the result is utterly nihilistic behavior. In classic science fiction tradition, Ballard examines the impact
of current social trends by projecting them into a hyperbolic future.
The husband/narrator of the story is a doctor who treats his patients
via video monitors. He met his wife, a masseuse named Margaret, when
he treated her for a suspicious lump in her breast. The consultation,
like all of the narrators medical work, is done via motion picture
cameras enhanced with infrared imaging and X-ray scanners. Ballards
choice of careers for these characters is quite significant, because both
doctors and massage therapists rely entirely upon physical touch to
perform their professions. But even in these most sensory of professions, the televisual medium has replaced physical interaction. The
same is true of intimate relationships. The narrator and Margaret date,
fall in love, marry, and conceive two children, all while communicating
only through television.1 In this society, age-old though rarely invoked ordinances still existed to prevent [meeting in person]to meet
another human being was an indictable offense.2 Eventually, the narrator becomes curious to have the family meet physically, despite the
laws against it, and that is the point at which we are introduced to the
characters in the grotesque scene which opens the narrative. All four
characters are bloody and sprawled around the narrators living room.
The meeting has sparked uncontrollable violence between all members
of the family. Immediately, the reader can see that the psychology of
these characters has been altered greatly by their entirely mediated
mode of living.
As the story reveals more about exactly how mediation has affected
the characters, Ballard simulates film narrative techniques in order to
draw attention to our own perceptual processes. Most obviously, the
narrator tells the story in the first person. In film everything must be
shown from a particular choice of visual perspective, just as the descriptions of his wife, son, and daughter are given from the narrators
visual perspective. The narrator also tells the story in the present tense
except for a long passage that provides us with background on the

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narrators relationships with his wife and children. Although this section of the story describes past events, it does so with the present
situation always in mind, thus making it seem like a film flashback.
These stylistic choices encourage us to compare the physiological perceptions of the narrator to the recording mechanism of the many
cameras in the text. This strategy is reinforced by the narrators own
explicit comparisons of human vision to mechanical vision: The
probing camera, with its infra-red and X-ray scanners, its computerized diagnostic aids, revealed far more than any unaided human eye
(197). While the narrator unwaveringly describes visual cultures impact upon human perception as positive, his own distorted, sometimes
deranged insights into his society and his family are a clear use of irony
on the part of the author. The use of the first person and present tense
to imitate cinematic storytelling is certainly not uncommon, but in the
context of this narrative, these formal choices become particularly
salient. Even as we read this text, we are urged to think about how
differently we perceive the world when we view it through visual
media.
The ways in which the characters in the story are influenced by
visual culture are numerous. The narrator describes the development of
family relationships by referring to the auteur traits of famous film
directors: [F]ortunately we had moved from the earnestness of Bergman and the more facile mannerisms of Fellini and Hitchcock to the
classical serenity and wit of Rene Clair and Max Ophuls, though the
children, with their love of the hand-held camera, still resembled so
many budding Godards (201 02). The narrators world has progressed to the point at which all facets of human life are understood
and described in filmic terms. Cinematic history and jargon have simply become part of the common vocabulary.
Ballard makes effective use of the narrators medical practice to
illustrate how film technology and aesthetics have come to redefine
some of the most unlikely aspects of human life. The narrator has built
a thriving general practice because he is adept at handling . . . complex keyboards and retrieval systemsa finger-tip sensitivity that was
the modern equivalent of the classical surgeons operative skills (197
98). He is concerned with the selection of . . . incoming callshow
tactfully to fade out a menopausal housewife and cut to a dysenteric
child, while remembering to cue in separately the anxious parents
(198). Bedside manner and all the etiquette inherent in a visit to the

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doctor have been replaced by film editing conventions. The narrator

even rolls credits at the end of consultations. Weddings, too, have
become televisual spectacles rather than intimate ceremonies. The narrator and Margaret are married in the most exclusive of the studio
chapels . . . the service was conducted by a priest renowned for his
mastery of the split-screen technique (200). He calls their wedding
night a triumph of the directors art, and Ballards presentation of
that night recollects the prudish social conventions of Classical Hollywood Cinema (201). The newlyweds engage in filmic foreplay (the
narrators increasingly bold zooms and Margarets shy fades and
wipes), but consummation is elided in a manner typical of commercial
films: As we undressed and exposed ourselves to each other the screens
merged into a last oblivious close-up . . . (see Black 35 36).
One of the most telling ironies in the story is that the narrator
arranges cameras about the room in preparation for the family meeting.
Even though the narrator feels it is important for his family to be
together without mediation, at least this one time, he still presupposes
that the meeting should be recorded. He writes, it seems only fitting
that a complete record should be made of this unique event (195). We
should note that a complete record apparently constitutes both visual
and verbal accounts of the meeting, because he places cameras around
the room yet he has also written of the meeting. This seems to justify
George Bluestones statement that the film, having only arrangements
of space to work with, cannot render thought (201). Or perhaps it is
that, as Joel Black writes, were so caught up in the media of moving
images that were unable to understand whats happening to us in these
media. The only way to begin to grasp the implications of the insight
that the whole world is on film, and even to articulate that insight, is
to turn to the verbal medium (Black 7). Just as Ballard must present
this story in written form in order to provide the reader with necessary
background information and the narrators interior monologue, the
narrator must augment the visual record with a written account in
order to reveal his thoughts, which the camera is incapable of communicating directly.
Ballards scenario captures from the outset the western worlds fascination with recording and viewing our lives, and simultaneously
posits violence and self-destruction as by-products of this fascination.
The narrator writes, In all senses, this film will be the ultimate home
movie, and I only hope that whoever watches it will gain some idea of

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the immense affection I feel for my wife, and for my son and daughter,
and of the affection that they, in their unique way, feel for me (195).
There is no question that in our own time the recording of family
events and milestones has become a sign of affection (or maybe merely
affectation). Perhaps more accurately, the failure to preserve important
moments on video has come to signify a lack of affection, as if to forget
to videotape a childs birthday party or first steps is a slight on the part
of the parent. As these thoughts circulate within the narrators mind,
though, he is lying on the floor, barely able to breathe, [his] mouth
filled with blood (195). Clearly, something is rather demented about
the affection being shown among these family members and/or the
narrators view of it.
However, the narrator never expresses (literally) a suspicion that the
proliferation of visual culture might be detrimental to himself, to his
family, or to society at large. Unlike the narrator in Luigi Pirandellos
classic novel about the effects of film culture on society, The Notebooks of
Serafino Gubbio, the narrator here describes the cameras in rather idolatrous terms. While Serafino Gubbio metaphorically compares the film
camera to a voracious tiger and to a spider that traps and devours its
prey, Ballards narrator frequently describes film as a liberating entity
that has perfected human life and relationships. He writes,
True closeness, I now knew, was television closenessthe intimacy
of the zoom lens, the throat microphone, the close-up itself. On the
television screen there were no body odours or strained breathing, no
pupil contractions and facial reflexes, no mutual sizing up of emotions and advantage, no distrust and insecurity. Affection and compassion demanded distance. Only at a distance could one find that
true closeness to another human being which, with grace, might
transform itself into love. (203 04)
The very terms used by the narrator, and myself, are problematic.
What do the words closeness, intimacy, together, or presence mean in a world
in which no one ever shares the same physical space? Of course, here
and elsewhere Ballard is using the narrative voice in a highly ironic
way, as evidenced by the narrators bizarre mix of tenderness and compulsive brutality in the closing paragraph:
Everyone is breathing more strongly, and the attack will clearly
begin within a minute. I can see the bloody scissors in my sons
hand, and remember the pain as he stabbed me. I brace myself

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against the settee, ready to kick his face. With my right arm I am
probably strong enough to take on whoever survives the last confrontation between my wife and daughter. Smiling at them affectionately, rage thickening the blood in my throat, I am only aware of
my feelings of unbounded love. (205)
The violence that marks this encounter and the narrators perceptions
of it beg some fundamental questions, the most obvious being why this
family meeting has led to uncontrollable barbarity. The narrative
clearly suggests it is a product of a totally mediated society, but what
exactly are the psychological mechanisms at work here?
Ballards sparse narrative style in this story allows ample room to
speculate on that issue. For all the characters, this meeting is an entry
into a new world, their first time being in the presence of a human
being rather than the image of a human being. Undoubtedly, this new
experience would place tremendous strain on the mind and would
warrant a severe reaction of some kind.
In the case of the children, the fact that their parents have remained
physically absent throughout their childhoods has created an overwhelming sense of rage toward them. On this point we can infer much
from the narrators description of his own childhood, which presumably gives us an overview of the way his own children were raised. He
writes, In my nursery I played hours of happy games with my parents,
who watched me from the comfort of their homes, feeding on to my
screen a host of videogames, animated cartoons, wild-life films and
family serials which together opened the world to me (197). The
entire system of parental affection has been changed from one of direct,
sensory exchange to one of symbolic, televisual exchange. The children
comprehend what these signs are supposed to mean but have never
experienced their actual referents. Then the children, once they have
reached an age at which they are capable of operating the video equipment, return their filial affection to the parents in the same manner.
Mental state, too, is signified by cinematic style. The narrator discusses
the importance of decorum (filmmaking as bedside manner again)
while conducting his daily appointments, and he mentions that his
patients also possess distinct filmic styles: The more neurotic patients
usually far exceeded [the other patients], presenting themselves with
the disjointed cutting, aggressive zooms and split-screen techniques
that went far beyond the worst excesses of experimental cinema (198).
All emotions, all mental processes, indeed all communication of the

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human condition is aestheticized. The physical gesture has been replaced by filmmaking convention. Thus, these characters have never felt
the affection of their family membersor any other person for that
mattertransmitted to them directly. Instead, all forms of feeling have
been merely signified via onscreen images in which style takes priority
over content. The characters comprehend the lexicon of stylistic conventions that signify affection, closeness, and so forth, on an intellectual, symbolic level, but with the actual referents of those conventions
always absent. The insecurities created when the family meets physically would be overwhelmingobviously, they were beyond these
characters ability to cope.
Although the narrator constantly refers to mediation as the most
positive aspect of his society, he does hint, in a very deceptive passage,
at the dangerous psychological ramifications of mediation. While discussing the almost Victorian code of visual ethics [that] governed . . .
all social intercourse, he writes, These admirable conventions eliminated all the dangers of personal involvement, and this liberating affectlessness allowed those who wished to explore the fullest range of sexual
possibility and paved the way for the day when a truly guilt-free sexual
perversity and, even, psychopathology might be enjoyed by all (199,
italics mine). The narrators gushingly praiseworthy language disguises
two disturbing observations. First, despite referring to it as liberating, he admits to mediation inducing affectlessness, a lack of emotion and attachment. Also, the liberation he credits mediation with
providing is the opportunity to safely cultivate ones mental pathology,
not the liberation from any perversity or psychopathology. The
narrator claims elsewhere that, thanks to the total mediation of human
interaction, especially when he was a child, he was spared all the
psychological dangers of a physically intimate family life (197). The
absence of those psychological dangers, however, is one of the key
factors leading to the familial slaughter in which their meeting culminates. These characters have experienced the usual array of unconscious desires and rage toward mother, father, son, or daughter, yet
because they have never coexisted in the same space, they have never
developed the mechanisms by which those impulses are controlled.
Instead, physical barriers have restricted them from acting upon their
unconscious desires, which have not dissipated but intensified. Once
the physical barrier of mediation is removed, each family member is
free to act upon years of repressed rage and desire.

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Ballard is, of course, employing the most familiar aspects of the

Freudian/Lacanian theory of identification. During the primary identification stage, the child identifies with an objectusually the mother
and incorporates the object into his/her imaginary self, the childs ego
being not yet fully formed at this stage. The mirror phase is the point at
which the child first clearly differentiates himself corporeally from his
physical surroundings, including the parental object. Secondary identification is the stage during which the Oedipal crisis takes place,
characterized by a collection of investments in the parents and by an
ensemble of desires. Included would be the childs love and sexual
desire for the parent of the opposite sex and jealous hatred and desire
for the death of the parental figure of the same sex, who is perceived
as a rival and prohibitive authority. . . . However, at the same time,
because of this same lack in his unsatisfied desire for the mother as
forbidden object, he will identify with the father, who is perceived
as an aggressor, as rival in the triangular Oedipal situation, and who
opposes the desire. The young boy finds himself in a position of
desiring his mother, thereby hating his father; yet by way of identification the boy enjoys in his imagination the fathers sexual prerogatives with the mother. . . . By the interplay of homosexual
components, the Oedipal complex always simultaneously presents
itself under what is called a negative form: presence of love and
desire related to the parent of the same sex, and jealousy and hatred
toward the parent of the opposite sex.
(Aumont et al. 203 04)
As many have pointed out, the enunciation of this theory biases male
desires, but the processes are very similar when the scenario is considered from the viewpoint of the female child. The passage above
serves as an accurate description of what happens during Ballards
family reunion.
Most telling is that the action which sets off this explosion of
violence between all family members is Karen stripping in front of her
father, a provocative act, presumably intended to jolt some incestuous
fantasy buried in her fathers mind (204). Denied the occasion during
early childhood to sort out her repressed desires for her father, Karen
instinctively pushes the issue at the first opportunity. We can easily
speculate as to the sequence of violence that followed that one act.
Karens attempt to seduce her father triggered a defensive response
from Margaret; thus we have mother and daughter competing as rivals

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341

for the fathers affection. Margaret has mostly ignored the narrator,
except for a brief lunge at his testicles, signifying both her need to
defend her husband and the hostility she feels toward him. The son,
David, meanwhile, has vented almost all his hostility on the narrator,
presumably acting upon his Oedipal urge to possess his mother and
replace his father (205). The narrator responds predictably by trying to
maintain possession of his wife and defend himself against his same-sex
rival, his son. Of course, there is also the identification with the samesex parent that each child experiences, which further complicates the
situation. Karens nudity may have sparked the violence, but clearly the
repressed urges being transferred into physical violence are spontaneous
and uncontrollable for each member of the family. The precise array
of psychological urges at play is so complex and intertwined that
the narrators description of the violence as an explosion seems
appropriate.
This interpretation of the psychology driving the violence among
the characters may be reductive, but as with so much of the story,
Ballard is capitalizing on readers knowledge of basic psychoanalytic
theory. These characters seem to engender some of its most well-known
aspects. Once thrown into a room together in front of the cameras, they
each fill roles outlined by the Oedipal triangle.
It is also quite interesting that, upon seeing his daughter bruised
and in the flesh for the first time, the narrator compares Karen to
Manets Olympia. He has relied entirely upon cinematic references and
terminology to this point, but now that he is in the presence of human
beings, he uses a reference to the representational arts. In this way,
Ballard suggests at least a slight change in the narrators perception of
the world.
Perhaps the most significant aspect of the story is the way mediation
has changed the very nature of interpersonal relationships. We define
ourselves through our perceptions, all of which shape and are shaped by
our own particular subjectivity. That subjectivity is formed greatly by
the people around us, especially our families. But the voyeuristic distance provided by televisual mediation fundamentally changes human
communication from interactions between person and person to exchanges between image and spectator. People no longer interact with
each other, but view each others voice- and visual-images. Analyzing
the story within the frame of film spectator theory reveals the full
implications of mediation in Ballards society, as well as our own. There

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are, of course, many theories of the spectator on which we could draw,

but given the content of the narrative it seems most appropriate to use
theories of the spectator based in psychoanalysis.
Many theorists have drawn an analogy between the position of the
child in the mirror phase and the position of the film spectator, the
conceptual mirror being compared with the film frame and the underdeveloped motor skills of the child to the immobile, isolated physical conditions of the spectator in the theater (Aumont et al. 200 02).
The obvious problem with this schema, however, is that the cinematic
screen never reflects the actual image of the spectator, not to mention
the fact that primary identification in psychoanalytic theory presupposes a child who has not yet entered the realm of the symbolic, while
theories of the film spectator assume an already constituted subject
who has passed through the primitive indifferentiation of early infancy
and thereby reached the symbolic (Aumont et al. 213 14). Jean-Louis
Baudry offers a more plausible notion of cinematic identification, that
of the double identification:
Within this double identification in the cinema, primary identification [which Christian Metz has proposed should be called primary cinematographic identification for the sake of clarity] refers to
identification with the subject of vision or the representing instance.
This primary stage serves as a base for and conditions the secondary
identification, which is the identification with the character represented.
(Aumont et al. 213)
For Baudry, the spectator identifies primarily with the camera/projector, the mechanism presenting the images. Primary identification has
far-reaching implications, both in film theory and in Ballards story:
Primary identification for the cinema is the means by which spectators identify with their own glance and also prove to themselves
that they are the locus of the representation by being the privileged,
central, and transcendental subject of the vision. . . . This privileged
place, which is always unique and always central (and obtained in
advance without any motor effort), is the place of God, or the allperceiving subject, gifted with ubiquity.
(Aumont et al. 214)
In other words, the spectator is positioned by the cinemas Renaissance
perspective and narrative continuity as the center of a world that is

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ordered and predictable and organized in all respects around the spectators visual position.
The conditions of spectatorship in Intensive Care Unit differ in
two respects from those of the average movie-going experience: the
characters are not sitting stationary in a darkened theater, and the
image before them is responsive and allows a degree of interaction.
Ballards characters engagement with the screen is heightened, though,
not only because this is their primary means of communication, but
also because it is their only link with the world beyond their domestic
space, particularly with their family. There is also the fact that each
character is essentially a filmmakerthey are all, as we have established, quite adept at manipulating the film medium; therefore, the
position of the subject of vision is somewhat second nature. Furthermore, in the case of children interacting with their parents televisually, the mirror metaphor takes on particular resonance because the
image of the parent before them is a kind of reflectionthat is, the
parent is an image of shared physiognomy and behavioral traits.
The privileged place of the all-perceiving subject is also reinforced
by each characters domination of his/her own living space. Essentially,
none of these characters has faced the intrusion of his/her private sphere
until the family meeting, at which point they are all, for the first time,
challenged in their status as the subject of vision. If the position of the
spectator gives the impression of being all-perceiving, god-like, and
the locus of the world, the metaphysical system these characters have
always known is effectively shattered when they step into the room
with each other and must communicate without mediation. Suddenly,
they have gazes aimed at them directly and are no longer the sole
subject in the room. The world is no longer ordered and predictable,
and they are no longer at its center. They have each been the object of
the gaze before, but always via the safety of the film medium. This is
not only the first time the object of their own gaze has been present,
but also the first time each has experienced competing gazes aimed at
the same object. This makes rivals out of all the family members, not
just the same sex parent and child. The voyeuristic distance required
for the subjects identification with an object has also been removed,
posing yet another, very real threat.
In all these respects, Ballards characters are completely unequipped
psychologically to comprehend and to manage the situation they have
entered as a family. The result of living in this mediated society, then, is

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the loss of the distinction between the real and the symbolic. In a sense,
these characters must undergo a sort of reverse mirror phase: they have
only known the symbolic, two-dimensional image, and must therefore
form a completely new concept of the difference between their own
bodies and those of the rest of the family. When thrown into the room
together, that phase happens at a manic pace and at an unbearable
intensityat the same time the characters are grappling with a completely foreign visual and auditory relationship with the external world.
The ultimate question of this analysis is whether Ballard is exaggerating wildly or has he captured something significant about contemporary society? On one hand, it seems ludicrous that a patient
would have no physical contact with her doctor, or that a masseuse
need not be present to perform a massage. On the other hand, the
pervasion of visual culture and mediation into our lives is already
beyond doubt, especially within familial relations. A 2002 CNN
report sings the praises of telematics, automobile versions of the
communication and entertainment appliances found in the typical
American home. Thanks to a drop-down television screen and DVD
player installed in her familys minivan, For months now, Nicole
Gunther hasnt heard her 4-year-old daughter whine from the back
seat, Are we there yet? (High Tech Hits the Road). Television is an
assumed component of effective parenting for many families, and the
laudatory tone of the article is frighteningly similar to that of Ballards
narrator as he describes the ways mediation has enhanced human life. A
similar CNN report describes a prototype of a robot programmed to
read with children, remind them to complete household chores, and to
prepare meals for them, another means of decreasing contact between
parents and children. In December 2005, the first couple to be officially married in cyberspace celebrated their tenth anniversary (First
Online Wedding). Like more and more singles, Randy Terwillegar
and Rachel Twing met online. However, Randy also proposed online,
the couple sent e-mail invitations to 150 guests worldwide who attended online, a minister officiated from Maryland while both bride
and groom were in Alaska, and there was a virtual bouquet and garter
toss. The major difference between this wedding and the one Ballard
describes is that the honeymoon was not mediated. Suddenly, Ballards
story does not seem quite so exaggerated.
One might think communications companies would downplay the
power of technology to separate us from those dearest to us, but they

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345

frequently use it as a marketing strategy. A television advertisement for

Cingular Wireless, for instance, uses one of the most well-known icons
of traditional American family life, the Waltons. The first thing to
point out, then, is that Cingular draws on visual culture for imagery
most of the American viewing public will recognize. The ad begins
with a long shot of the Waltons house and the shows theme music. As
anyone who has seen the series expects, we begin to hear the members
of the family say their sentimental good nights. Night, Mary Ellen!
Night, Jim Bob! The ritual continues just as it did in the original
series. However, before each good night, we hear the now-familiar
walkie-talkie chirp and the shot switches to a different house, indicating that the family members now live separately. Eventually we
cycle back to the original house and hear, Good night, John Boy. The
theme music, the rhythm of the editing, and the use of the Waltons
ritual make it seem like the family is just as tight-knit as ever. The
promise of this ad and many like it is that technology can maintain
close family bonds, even though the family members now live in several completely different locations.
The mediated communication in the story, though, most closely
approximates the interactive structure of the two fastest growing sectors of visual culture, the internet and video games, neither of which
had developed beyond more than a nebulous state at the time Ballard
was writing in 1982. Both provide possibilities for interaction not
offered by film or television, but which are present in Intensive Care
Unit. The internet and video games have also become known for the
kind of ultrasensational pornographic and violent content hinted at by
the story. Because the by-products of mediation in Ballards narrative
are violence, affectlessness, sexual perversity, and lack of impulse
control, all of these similarities between the story and contemporary
society leave us to marvel at the prescience of the author and to shudder
at what the accuracy of his vision implies.

Notes
1. Ballard clarifies that Margarets insemination was of course by AID, but says no more about
the gestation period or birth process (197).
2. As with the birth process, Ballard omits a specific detail about the setting. While this poses
slight difficulty for analysis of the story, it does avoid what would be rather cumbersome
narrative exposition for Ballard.

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Works Cited
Aumont, Jacques, et al. Aesthetics of Film. Trans. Richard Neupert.
Austin: U of Texas P, 1992.
Ballard, J. G. Intensive Care Unit. Myths of the Near Future. Ed. J.G.
Ballard. London: Jonathan Cape, 1982. 194 205.
Black, Joel. The Reality Effect: Film Culture and the Graphic Imperative.
New York: Routledge, 2002.
Bluestone, George. The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the
Film. Novels into Film. Rpt. in Film and Literature: An Introduction
and Reader. Eds. Timothy Corrigan and George Bluestone. Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1999. 197 213.
First Online Wedding Couple Celebrates 10 Years. News.adventist.org.
Adventist News Network, 6 Dec. 2005. Accessed on 4 Feb. 2006
hhttp://news.adventist.org/2005/12/first-olie-weig-couple-celebrates10-years.htmli.
High Tech Hits the Road. CNN.com. Cable News Network, 2002.
Accessed on 26 Feb. 2002 hhttp://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/
ptech/02/26/auto.electronics.ap/index.htmli.
Pirandello, Luigi. The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio. Trans. C. K. Scott
Moncrieff. Cambs: Dedalus, 1990.
Jeff W. Marker earned a doctorate in Comparative Literature from the
University of Georgia and now teaches film and literature at Gainesville State
College. The present article is informed by his research in theories of cinema
spectatorship and the comparative nature of most of his work. He has also
presented research in animation studies and is currently working on a book
about representations of surveillance in post-9/11 cinema.

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