Journal articles on the topic 'James Bond 007'

Background and aims Many women in Bond films make love to James Bond (alias 007). Our objective was to quantify the practice of (un)safe sex in Bond films. Methods and results All 24 Bond films were watched together by the authors and the following data were recorded: if the women had sex with 007, whether the women consumed any alcohol before they had sex, whether contraceptives were mentioned and/or used by 007 or the women and whether the women survived the film. Bond had sexual relations with a total of 58 different women. Twenty-two percent of the women had consumed alcohol. In none of the films was any type of contraception mentioned or used. A total of 28% women did not survive the film. Conclusion If he were real, Bond outnumbers the British men at least fivefold when it comes to the number of sexual partners over a lifetime. Nevertheless, over time casual sex is becoming less frequent for 007. Sexually transmitted diseases, safe sex and (unwanted) pregnancies seem not to exist in the films. Some suggestions were made to promote safe sex in future Bond films as movies can play an important role in sex education.

This chapter traces Foucauldian technologies of power in the James Bond universe and characterises the Bond franchise’s biopolitics in the cultural environment of the 1960s and 1970s, when 007 became a mass phenomenon. The majority of the chapter is dedicated to a case study of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Ian Fleming’s tenth Bond novel (1963) and the sixth film in the EON series (1969). The chapter highlights the intersection between reproduction and fertility on the one hand and the infliction of death and mass genocide on the other, and it examines how James Bond juxtaposes the disciplinary means that are directed against the body (as an organism) on the one hand, and the state-powered regulation of biological processes that control the population on the other. The two versions of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service amount to the franchise’s most straightforward foray into the realm of biopolitics and would pave the way for the franchise’s subsequent biopolitical and eugenic moments, like when the figure of the genocidal villain gets to articulate the franchise’s own subliminal agenda regarding population control and the future of the (British) species.

Agent 007 behind the Iron Curtain: The phenomenon of James Bond in the cultural writings of the Polish People’s RepublicThe topic of the article is the reception of the phenomenon of James Bond in cultural writings from the times of the Polish People’s Republic. Though an average member of the Polish audience could not be directly familiar with the character neither in literature nor in film, the scale of the popularity of the brand in the West meant that the echoes of the so-called Bondomania started to reach countries behind the Iron Curtain. Polish critics and journalists tried to acquaint their readers with the issue and explain it using various interpretative categories.The article attempts to reconstruct these categories and their hierarchy of values. Based on theses formulated by Janet Staiger Interpreting Films: Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema, the author analyses the changes to Polish interpretations and opinions on the Bond phenomenon in subsequent decades and indicates the historical conditions that influenced those changes. The text focuses primarily on two periods: 1964–1971 and the latter half of the 1980s, because it was in those times that the interest of Polish critics in James Bond was particularly strong.

Nesse artigo analisarei os enredos dos filmes da franquia “007-James Bond”, verificando a relação das películas produzidas com o contexto da Guerra Fria e as transformações recentes pelas quais a personagem James Bond passou, ligadas diretamente a um processo acentuado de naturalização e legitimação dos ideais da sociedade consumista contemporânea e a produção e reprodução do Homo-Consumericus. Para isso, diversos teóricos pertinentes a essa discussão serão abordados com o intuito de fundamentar esse debate tão caro à sociedade contemporânea. A metodologia utilizada será de revisão bibliográfica e descrição dos enredos das películas selecionadas.

Abstract This paper contends that genre mixing in comedy films of the 1960s in South Korea had the potential to interrupt filmic codes, which were increasingly propagandistic following the tightening of film law. The advent of the James Bond films as a global cultural phenomenon stimulated local production of spy films, where the villain was typically North Korean. These films were welcomed by cultural regimes of the time due to their anticommunist orientation, but a small hybrid genre, the “spy comedy,” undermined their absolutism. Based in the vernacular comedy traditions of slapstick film performance, stage comedy, and radio, these “spy comedies” spoofed aspects of both the James Bond franchise and the local action thrillers that imitated Bond. This was often accomplished by overlaying the narrative of a rustic with that of a spy. The comedies reveal a synchronicity between development and urbanization, which displaced large numbers of people, and the othering of North Koreans, which led to spy paranoia about those who were out of place. This paper argues that global genres played a particular role for South Korean comedy in the 1960s: they enabled oblique treatments of sensitive social issues through play. Generic heterogeneity defined comedic films of this era.

AbstractA controversy at the 2016 IUCN World Conservation Congress on the topic of closing domestic ivory markets (the 007, or so-called James Bond, motion) has given rise to a debate on IUCN's value proposition. A cross-section of authors who are engaged in IUCN but not employed by the organization, and with diverse perspectives and opinions, here argue for the importance of safeguarding and strengthening the unique technical and convening roles of IUCN, providing examples of what has and has not worked. Recommendations for protecting and enhancing IUCN's contribution to global conservation debates and policy formulation are given.

Independent researcherIn the 1960s, after the international commercial success of the James Bond films, many imitations and parodies of the original were made in different parts of the world. In India popular Hindi films were also inspired by the 007 franchise, beginning with the action thriller Farz in 1967. From then on a new genre was formed in the Bombay cinema: Hindi Bond films. These derivative productions were deliberately created to replicate the plot formula and narrative structure of the original Bond series. They underwent considerable development from cheap, amateurish B-movies to big budget commercial hits such as Ek Tha Tiger in 2012. Also the leading characters in Hindi Bond films, the secret agents of the Indian police and intelligence, evolved from the innocent, happy-go-lucky youngsters in the 1960s into the tough, world-weary men of action in the 2010s. One of the most important factors of this gradual change is the way the heroes’ bodies were shown on screen. The focus on the esthetics, the musculature, the physical abilities and sex appeal of the Bombay Bonds was different in every decade. This article concentrates on the evolution of Hindi Bond films: the genre as well as the leading characters.

Abstract This article starts from the playful premise that if James Bond practiced law, it would be international arbitration. The article uses the 007 metaphor and the titles of James Bond films to examine the ethical challenges that confront various actors in international arbitration. The article argues that arbitration practitioners—as they tend to the needs of their clients, their organizations, their institutions, and their own professional goals—should look beyond their most immediate, short-term self-interest so their case does not become the billboard for some endemic problem or controversy in international arbitration. A modicum of foresight might have altered outcomes in some of arbitration's most disruptive cases and sensational cases—HEP v. Slovenia, Yukos, Einser, and RSM v. St. Lucia. The article concludes with a QUANTUM OF SOLACE—those professionals active in international arbitration have it within their power and have demonstrated a collective impulse to address problems through a determined self-reassessment and internal recalibration. In conclusion, it calls on international arbitration practitioners to make that collective impulse an express commitment, at TOMORROW NEVER DIES.

This article examines the dialectic between continuity and change in the first two James Bond films of the Daniel Craig era, Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008), reading these as complex responses to current geopolitical, social and cultural changes. Under the influence of pervasive media representations of the era of global crises, the 007 films with Craig – more than fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin wall – appear to have finally overcome the Cold War paradigm that has been a staple of the series since it began in 1962. Admittedly, some of the challenges that Bond now faces – such as global terrorism, financial and economic instability, the effects of climate change and, in the last feature explicitly, the exacerbating tension over scarce water resources – are not entirely new to the series. But, crucially, such themes are no longer linked to the geopolitics of the Cold War and the franchise is now set within a new world order of asymmetrical threats. As well as reacting to the new global situation, however, the franchise was also required to compete with a rising number of spies and assassins in the cinema and, more particularly, on television. Many of the changes – including narrative structures, dramaturgical strategies and character development – appear to be inspired by other media images and trends, most notably ‘quality’ television series with budgets equal to many medium-sized cinema productions.

Objetiva-se verificar transformações ocorridas na personagem de James Bond no cinema ao longo das cinco décadas em que foram produzidos os filmes de 007, em decorrência de mudanças que emergem a partir do fenômeno da midiatização da cultura que hoje permeia a sociedade, não apenas se apropriando dos fenômenos culturais, mas também afetando seus modos de representação expressiva. Serão analisados aspectos como o conforto e a virilidade da personagem do agente secreto nos cinco primeiros e no sétimo filme da saga, com o escocês Sean Connery, em contraposição aos quatro últimos filmes, com o inglês Daniel Craig, para comprovar, na evidência cinematográfica, certos intercâmbios que ao longo do tempo ocorrem entre os eventos sociais e a cultura das mídias, em sua evolução política e audiovisual, da última metade do século XX até as primeiras décadas do século XXI.

Dalam penerjemahan film (subtitling), aspek legibilitas memiliki peranan penting yang mencakup beberapa kaidah dalam pengaturan teks alih bahasa (subtitle), baik dalam tampilan maupun durasinya. Kesesuaian dan ketepatan aspek legibilitas sangat mempengaruhi kualitas teks alih bahasa dalam sebuah film sehingga seorang penerjemah film tidak hanya dituntut harus menguasai ilmu terjemahan saja, tetapi juga memahami dan menerapkan beberapa aspek legibilitas tersebut. Tampilan teks alih bahasa pada film James Bond 007 Quantum of Solace, ditemukan bahwa jumlah karakter teks alih bahasa antara 35 sampai 40, walaupun terdapat beberapa jumlah karakter yang masih dibawah 35. Posisi teks alih bahasa dari kiri ke kanan, agak dibawah dengan warna putih pucat dan beberapa dengan warna oranye pada saat terjadinya percakapan dengan bahasa Italia. Selain itu, ada juga yang tercetak miring ketika sumber percakapan berasal dari lawan bicara di telpon. Durasi yang digunakan cukup bervariasi dengan hitungan detik sampai seperdetik, ini sangat penting mengingat durasi tampilan teks alih bahasa harus sesuai dengan durasi tampilan gambar pada layar.

Abstract In 2012, Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot joined the likes of Richard Ellmann, Gordon Bowker and Michael Hastings and in their graphic memoir Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes (2012) offered a new re-telling of James Joyce’s life, focusing, in particular, on the difficult relationship between the great Irish writer, and his daughter Lucia. However, the story of a complicated emotional bond between Joyce and Lucia was only a framework for an autobiographical coming-of age narrative about Mary M. Talbot herself and her violent relationship with James S. Atherton, a celebrated Joycean scholar and her very own “cold mad feary father”. Following Martha C. Nussbaum’s conception about cognitive and narrative structure of emotions postulated in Love’s Knowledge (1990) and Upheavals of Thoughts (2001), this article wishes to argue in favour of an organic connection between the volume’s thematic concerns and its generic affiliation. In other words, it discusses how a specific class of emotions pertaining to Lucia’s gradual mental disintegration can be adequately told only in a specific literary form, i.e. in a transdiegetised “commix”, an (auto)biographical account which occupies a threshold space between a comic and a novel, fiction and non-fiction, biography and autobiography, words and pictures.

In precision agriculture, the selection and use of appropriate sensors determine the type and quality of information that will feed decision-support models. A wide variety of sensors, spectral ranges, data collection and processing approaches are used, sometimes leading to confusion. Whether in transmission or reflectance mode, multispectral or hyperspectral, laboratory or field-based or even satellite-borne, in order to achieve meaningful and accurate measurements it is essential to have a clear understanding of which part of the electromagnetic spectrum the sensors relate to and how the corresponding radiation interacts with the substrate (e.g. soils, crops, livestock products). Sensors in the visible range (390-700 nm) use colour to identify certain properties of the substrate (e.g. chlorophyll and pigments in crops, organic matter contents in soil) and can be used to detect and quantify colour changes that could, in turn, be correlated with changes in those properties. Alternatively, radiation in the near (NIR, 750-2500 nm) and mid infrared (MIR, 2500-25 000 nm) interacts with the molecular bonds that constitute organic and inorganic matter and, therefore, sensors with detectors in these ranges provide different but interrelated information on the chemical composition of the substrate. Shorter wavelength radiation in the form of X-Rays (0.1-10 nm) induces fluorescence in the substrate and XRF sensors provide elemental atomic information that is highly applicable to the study of soils, sediments and fluids. At the James Hutton Institute, we have expertise in the use of all these types of sensors and are developing practical applications based on a thorough understanding of the processes involved. In this paper we provide an overview of the capabilities and applications of the different sensors used in precision agriculture, not only with a theoretical understanding, but also with an awareness of the practicalities involved.

Roemmich, James N., and Wayne E. Sinning. Weight loss and wrestling training: effects on nutrition, growth, maturation, body composition, and strength. J. Appl. Physiol. 82(6): 1751–1759, 1997.—Adolescent wrestlers ( n = 9, 15.4 yr) and recreationally active control adolescent males ( n = 7, 15.7 yr) were measured before, at the end (late season), and 3.5–4 mo after a wrestling season to assess the influence of dietary restriction on growth, maturation, body composition, protein nutrition, and muscular strength. Controls consumed adequate amounts of energy, carbohydrate (CHO), protein, and fat, and demonstrated normal gains in weight, fat mass (FM) and fat-free mass (FFM). Wrestlers consumed a high-CHO (61 ± 2% kcal), low-fat (24 ± 2% kcal) diet during the season but did not consume adequate energy (24.7 ± 3.5 kcal ⋅ kg−1⋅ day−1) or protein (0.9 g ⋅ kg−1⋅ day−1). Deficient dietary intake reduced prealbumin levels (26.0 ± 1.9 vs. 20.2 ± 0.9 mg/dl) and slowed the accrual of lean arm and thigh cross-sectional muscle areas (AXSECT, TXSECT, respectively). For wrestlers, dietary deficiency also decreased weight (60.3 ± 3.5 to 58.0 ± 3.3 kg), relative fat (9.9 ± 0.5 to 8.0 ± 0.7%), and FM (6.0 ± 0.5 to 4.7 ± 0.6 kg). Postseason, wrestlers and controls consumed similar diets, and wrestlers had significant increases in prealbumin, AXSECT, and TXSECT. Wrestlers also increased their weight (6.1 ± 0.6 kg), FFM (3.0 ± 0.6 kg), and FM (3.2 ± 0.5 kg) postseason. Rates of bone maturation and segmental growth were not different between the groups. The wrestlers had reductions in elbow and knee strength from preseason to late season but increases postseason. Lean tissue changes were associated with the changes in strength and power ( r = 0.72–0.91, P < 0.001). After covariance for FFM or limb-specific cross section, few significant changes remained. In conclusion, dietary restriction reduced protein nutrition and muscular performance but produced little effect on linear growth and maturation. Prealbumin levels and the rate of lean tissue accrual were positively related ( r = 0.43, P ≤ 0.05).

Background:The Hemophagocytic Syndrome (HPS) had a mortality rate between 20% and 90%. The mortality of HPS secondary to autoimmune diseases (AID) is lower than hemato-oncological diseases (HOD). In general, the HOD, thrombocytopenia, age, and a prolongation of prothrombin are considered to be an adverse prognostic factor.(1)Objectives:To describe and identify differences between patients who survived and did not survive to HPS during hospital admission to a tertiary hospital between 2005 and 2019.Methods:This is a retrospective observational study. All patients who met the diagnostic criteria for LHH were included, or who presented haemophagocytic cells in the bone marrow biopsy, or who had diagnosis of HPS in the hospital discharge report.(2) Demographic, clinical, analytical, etiological, underlying disorder and prognosis variables were collected. Continuous variables are described with the mean or median according to the degree of normality. Kruskal Wallis, Fisher test and Mann-Whitney U test were used for the bivariate analysis, and also a multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed.Results:Thirty patients with HPS were included. They were distributed in 5 subgroups (Table 1). Overall mortality was 43.3%, statistically significant higher in the HOD [8 patients (66.7%); p 0.029]. Also, they were divided into 2 groups (survivor vs. non-survivor; Table 2). In the multivariate model the age and INR prolongation were confirmed to be independently associated with the outcome of mortality.Table 1.Etiology of HPSEtiologyn = 30MortalityAID10n = 1 Systemic lupus erythematosus51 Adult Still’s Disease3No Rheumatoid arthritis1No Sclerosing Disease IgG41NoHOD12n = 8* Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma31 Myelodysplastic syndrome32 Acute leukemia33 Extranodal NK cell lymphoma11 Multiple Myeloma1No Probable lymphoproliferative process11Infectious diseases2n = 1 Pneumocystis carinii in patient with H.I.V.11 Campylobacter yeyuni1NoGlyoblastoma multiforme with temozolomida1n = 0HPS without defined aetiology53HIV: Human Immunodeficiency Virus, NK: Natural Killer. *p = 0,029Table 2.Characteristics and differences between survivor and non-survivor groupsTotalNon-survivorsurvivorn301317p<0,05Age55,5±18,36858,2-74,54034-570,043Women1653,3%761,5%947,1%1,00Comorbidities (≥ 2)516,7%215,4%317,6%1,000Hospital stay35,520-60,82915,5-39138-170,563Splenomegaly1653,3%753,8%952,9%1,000Hepatomegaly1033,3%538,5%529,4%0,705Hb (g/dL)7,16,4-7,9710%6,2-7,87,16,6-7,80,094Pt (x109/L)13 5005 000-52 50016 00011 000-44 00012 0005 000-99 0000,281Pt≤ 100 0002583,3%13100%1270,6%0,052Leu (x109/L)1 250238-3 1531 300150-3 9401 400200-3 3400,457Neu (x109/L)6150-1 5501 29020-3 3006500-1 4000,805Fb (mg/dL) (n=24)171111-358167,00106-253169,00103-4510,796Fer (ng/mL) (n=28)15 3305 434-38 28429 0635 728-74 60413 2258 287-28 7290,108Tg (mmol/L)341226-438254,00184-382471,00341-6040,053GOT (U/L)13977,5-406,3133,00101-513179,00101-512,50,483GPT (U/L)16246-389109,0041-333199,0099-2980,198INR (n=29)1,51,1-1,92,11,2-3,71,51,1-1,60,028Hb: Hemoglobin, Pt: platelets, Leu: leukocytes, Neu: neutrophils, Fb: fibrinogen, Fer: ferritin, Tg: triglycerides, GOT: aspartate aminotransferase, GPT: alanine aminotransferaseConclusion:The HOD presented higher mortality. The non-survivor group presented a longer INR prolongation and a higher age at the time of diagnosis.References:[1]Parikh SA. Prog. factors and outcomes of adults with HLH. Mayo Clin Proc. 2014;89:484–492.[2]Henter JI. HLH-2004: Diag. and therapeutic guidelines for HLH.Pediatr Blood Cancer. 2007;48:124.Disclosure of Interests:César Antonio Egües Dubuc: None declared, Andrea De Diego: None declared, Patricia Cabrera Miranda: None declared, Nerea Alcorta Lorenzo: None declared, Jesús Alejandro Valero Jaimes: None declared, Jose Ramon Furundarena Salsamendi: None declared, Olga Maiz-Alonso: None declared, Luis Maria Lopez Dominguez: None declared, Esther Uriarte Isacelaya: None declared, Jorge Jesús Cancio Fanlo: None declared, Jaime Calvo Grant/research support from: Lilly, UCB, Consultant of: Abbvie, Jansen, Celgene, Joaquin Maria Belzunegui Otano: None declared

Background:The Hemophagocytic Syndrome (HPS) is has been classified into 2 groups: primary and secondary. The secondary form is mainly associated with hemato-oncological diseases (HOD) and autoimmune diseases (AID). The present work aims to obtain clinical and analytical data that can guide us to an etiological diagnosis.Objectives:To describe and identify the differences between HPS secondary to AID and HOD during their admission to a tertiary hospital between 2005 and 2019.Methods:This is a retrospective observational study. We include patient meeting the diagnostic criteria for HLH proposed by Henter JI. (1), or who presented haemophagocytic cells (HC) in the bone marrow biopsy (BMB), or who had HPS in the hospital discharge report. Demographic, clinical, analytical, etiological, underlying disorders and prognosis variables were collected. Continuous variables are described with the mean or median according to the degree of normality. Kruskal Wallis, Fisher test and Mann-Whitney U test were used for the bivariate analysis, and also a multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed.Results:We found 30 patients with secondary HPS, 22 of which corresponded to the AID [Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (n=5), Adult Still’s Disease (n=3), Rheumatoid arthritis (n=1) and IgG4 Sclerosing Disease (n=1)] and HOD [Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (n=3), Myelodysplastic syndrome (n=3), Acute leukemia (n=3), Extranodal NK cell lymphoma (n=1), Multiple Myeloma (n=1) and probable lymphoproliferative process (n=1)]. The coincidence of an infectious disease with HPS was observed in 8 of the 22 cases [AID: 5 cases (2Cytomegalovirus, 2 viral respiratory infections and 1 bacterial infection) and HOD: 3 cases (2Epstein Barr virusand 1 bacterial infection)]. In two patients with HPS secondary to HOD (acute leukemia), allogeneic transplantation was associated as a possible trigger. In a patient with myelodysplastic syndrome, HPS was associated with the development of graft versus host disease. The age at diagnosis was lower in the AID [40 (26.5 - 56.3); p 0.001]. The HOD had more severe cytopenias [platelets 4500 (650 - 15,750; p 0.009), leukocytes 2050 (20 - 728; p 0.0001) and neutrophils 0 (0 - 280; p 0.002)]. Overall mortality (n=30 patients) was 43.3% (HOD: 66.7%; p 0.029) (table 1). In the final multivariate model according to AID and HOD, the following independent associations were observed: age (p 0.002), platelets (p 0.031), GOT (p 0.012), GPT (p 0.015), total proteins (p 0.007) and mortality (p 0.007).Table 1.Characteristics and comparative analysis of HPS secondary to AID and HODTotalAIDHODn301012*p<0,05Age(x± s)55,5±18,34026,5-56,36857,5-73,80,001Gender, male1446,7%330%975%0,084Spenomegaly1653,3%550%866,7%0,666Hepatomegaly1033,3%440%433,3%1,000Hb (g/dL)7,16,4-7,97,26,6-8,46,55,9-7,30,05Pt (x109/L)13 5005 000-52 50031 65011 000-100 2504 500650-15 7500,004Leu (x109/L)1 250238-3 1531 9851 350-3 38218520 – 7280,000Neu (x109/L)6150-1 550948633-1 80800-2800,001Fb (mg/dL) (n=24)171111-35821290-450167114-3541,00Fer (ng/mL) (n=28)15 3305 434-38 28414 2634 254-14 26316 7968 287 - 56 9690,314Tg (mmol/L)341226-438411,5234-572321233,8-403,80,314GOT (U/L)13978-406457289-1 14010671-1930,003GPT (U/L)16246-388432174-59910954-2630,017T.P. (n=29)4,8±,1,045,04,5-5,84,33,9-4,50,003Hospital stay35,520,0-60,830,59,5-53,361,529,3-93,30,036Hospital stay pre-dx16,58,5-29,8105,0-16,52610-390,038Mortality1343,3%110%866,7%0,011Hb: hemoglobin, Pt: platelets, Leu; leukocytes, Neu, neutrophils, Fb: fibrinogen, Fer: ferritin, Tg: triglycerides, GOT: aspartate aminotransferase, GPT: alanine aminotransferase, T.P.: total proteins, pre-dx: prior to the diagnosis of HPS according to BMO. *Analysis between AID and HOD.Conclusion:The HOD presented higher mortality and severe cytopenias. The AID presented a higher elevation of transaminases and better prognosis.References:[1]Henter JI, et al. HLH-2004: Diagnostic and therapeutic guidelines for HLH.Pediatr Blood Cancer. 2007;48:124.Disclosure of Interests:César Antonio Egües Dubuc: None declared, Andrea De Diego: None declared, Patricia Cabrera Miranda: None declared, Nerea Alcorta Lorenzo: None declared, Jesús Alejandro Valero Jaimes: None declared, Jose Ramon Furundarena Salsamendi: None declared, Luis Maria Lopez Dominguez: None declared, Jorge Jesús Cancio Fanlo: None declared, Olga Maiz-Alonso: None declared, Esther Uriarte Isacelaya: None declared, Jaime Calvo Grant/research support from: Lilly, UCB, Consultant of: Abbvie, Jansen, Celgene, Joaquin Maria Belzunegui Otano: None declared

I slutningen af James Bond-filmen For Your Eyes Only er agent 007 alene med en „pige“. Hun lader sin badekabe falde ned fra skuldrene og siger til ham: „or your eyes only“. Det er meget pracist, for publikum far ikke lov til at se, hvad Bond har blik for. Kameraet viser nemlig ikke den til lejligheden udvalgtes hemmeligheder. Lignende afslutningssekvenser er velkendte fra andre James Bondfilm. Han ser noget, som kameraet skjuler for publikums blik. Tilskueren er hensat til at give fantasien frit lob. De overordnede kategorier, man filmteoretisk kan inddele blikke i, er skuespillernes, kameraets og publikums blik. Skuespillernes blikke er rettet mod andre aktorer eller objekter, som kan vare inden for eller uden for billedfeltet. Billedfeltet er det, kameraets oje har indfanget, og det er det oje, der leder publikums blik. Publikums blik er af en rakke teoretikere blevet opfattet som et blik, der indeholder mere end blot det at beskue en filmisk fortalling. Blikket er blevet karakteriseret som voyeuristisk.1 Et blik, der beskuer noget, som er synligt. Noget, der i sin struktur lader sig vare synligt, men som ikke afslorer, at det bliver beskuet. Publikum kan se uden at blive intimideret i sin skuelyst. Nu skal denne artikel ikke dreje sig om, hvordan publikum ser, og hvorfor det ser. Det, der vil blive fokuseret pa, er det konkrete blik, der viser sig i fiktionsfilm. Det vil sige skuespillernes og sekundart kameraets blik. I det folgende skal det dog indledningsvis uddybes, hvorfor publikums kiggeri ikke afslores. Kilden til det trak skal nemlig findes i konventionen for skuespillernes blikke. I forlangelse af dette vil det kort blive belyst, hvordan blikke i faktaformidling afviger fra fiktionsfilmens blikkonventioner. Herefter vil blikkets funktioner som synshandling og synsmade i fiktionsfilm mere grundigt blive belyst i forhold til en film, nemlig Hitchcocks Skjulte øjne fra 1954.

In many ways, computers are becoming invisible and will continue to do so. When we reach into our pockets and pull out our cell phones to find a place to eat or message a friend on Facebook, we are no longer consciously aware that we are interacting with a user experience that has been consciously designed for our computer or device screen—but we are.— Andy Pratt and Jason Nunes, Interactive Design In theory, cell phones and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) are just a means for us to interact with people, businesses, and data sources. They have interfaces and, in a larger sense, are interfaces between their users and the networked world. Every day, people spend more time using them to perform more different tasks and find them more indispensable (Smith). As the epigraph above suggests, however, their omnipresence makes them practically invisible and has all but erased any feelings of awe or mystery that their power once generated. There is both a historical and functional dimension to this situation. In the historical advance of technology, it is part of what Kevin Kelly calls the “technium,” the ever-more complex interactions between advancing technology, our cognitive processes, and the cultural forces in which they are enmeshed; ICTs are measurably getting more powerful as time goes on and are, in this sense, worthy of our admiration (Kelly 11-17). In the functional dimension, on the other hand, many scholars and designers have observed how hard it is to hold on to this feeling of enchantment in our digital devices (Nye 185-226; McCarthy and Wright 192-97). As one study of human-computer interfaces observes “when people let the enchanting object [ICTs] do the emotional work of experience for them . . . what could be enchanting interactivity becomes a paradoxically detached interpassivity” (McCarthy et al. 377). ICTs can be ever more powerful, then, but this power will not necessarily be appreciated by their users. This paper analyzes recent narrative representations of ICT use in spy thrillers, with a particular focus on the canon of James Bond films (a sub-genre with a long-standing and overt fascination with advanced technology, especially ICTs), in order to explore how the banality of ICT technology has become the inescapable accompaniment of its power (Willis; Britton 99-123; 195-219). Among many possible recent examples: recall how Bond uses his ordinary cell phone camera to reveal the membership of the sinister Quantum group at an opera performance in Quantum of Solace; how world-wide video surveillance is depicted as inescapable (and amoral) in The Bourne Legacy; and how the anonymous protagonist of Roman Polanski’s Ghost Writer discovers the vital piece of top secret information that explains the entire film—by searching for it on his laptop via Google. In each of these cases, ICTs are represented as both incredibly powerful and tediously quotidian. More precisely, in each case human users are represented as interfaces between ICTs and their stored knowledge, rather than the reverse. Beginning with an account of how the naturalization of ICTs has changed the perceived relations between technology and its users, this essay argues that the promotional rhetoric of human empowerment and augmentation surrounding ICTs is opposed by a persistent cinematic theme of human subordination to technological needs. The question it seeks to open is why—why do the mainstream cinematic narratives of our culture depict the ICTs that enhance our capacities to know and communicate as something that diminishes rather than augments us? One answer (which can only be provisionally sketched here) is the loss of pleasure. It does not matter whether or not technology augments our capacities if it cannot sustain the fantasy of pleasure and/or enhancement at the same time. Without this fantasy, ICTs are represented as usurping position as the knowing subject and users, in turn, become the media connecting them– even when that user is James Bond. The Rhetoric of Augmentation Until the past five years or so, the technologization of the human mind was almost always represented in popular culture as a threat to humanity—whether it be Ira Levin’s robotic Stepford Wives as the debased expression of male wish-fulfillment (Levin), or Jonathan Demme’s brainwashed assassins with computer chip implants in his remake of The Manchurian Candidate. When Captain Picard, the leader and moral centre of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, is taken over by the Borg (an alien machine race that seeks to absorb other species into its technologized collective mind) in an episode from 1990, it is described as “assimilation” rather than an augmentation. The Borg version of Picard says to his former comrades that “we only wish to raise quality of life, for all species,” and it is a chilling, completely unemotional threat to the survival of our species (“Best of Both Worlds”). By 2012, on the other hand, the very same imagery is being used to sell smart phones by celebrating the technological enhancements that allegedly make us better human beings. In Verizon’s Droid DNA phone promotions, the product is depicted as an artificial heart for its user, one that enhances memory, “neural speed,” and “predictive intelligence” (thanks to Google Now). The tagline for the Verizon ad claims that “It’s not an upgrade to your phone; it’s an upgrade to yourself”, echoing Borg-Picard’s threat but this time as an aspirational promise (“Verizon Commercial”). The same technologization of the mind that was anathema just a few years ago, is now presented as both a desirable consumer goal and a professional necessity—the final close-up of the Verizon artificial heart shows that this 21st century cyborg has to be at his job in 26 minutes; the omnipresence of work in a networked world is here literally taken to heart. There is, notably, no promise of pleasure or liberation anywhere in this advertisement. We are meant to desire this product very much, but solely because it allows us to do more and better work. Not coincidentally, the period that witnessed this inversion in popular culture also saw an exponential increase in the quantity and variety of digitally networked devices in our lives (“Mobile Cellular”) and the emergence of serious cultural, scientific, and philosophical movements exploring the idea of “enhanced” human beings, whether through digital tool use, biomedical prostheses, drugs, or genetic modifications (Buchanan; Savulescu and Bostrom; “Humanity +”). As the material boundaries of the “human” have become more permeable and malleable, and as the technologies that make this possible become everyday objects, our resistance to this possibility has receded. The discourse of the transhuman and extropian is now firmly established as a philosophical possibility (Lilley). Personal augmentation with the promise of pleasure is still, of course, very much present in the presentation of ICTs. Launching the iPad 2 in 2011, the late Steve Jobs described his new product as a “magical and revolutionary device” with an “incredible magical user interface on a much larger canvas with more resources” and gushing that “it's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing” (“Apple Special Event”). This is the rhetoric of augmentation through technology and, as in the Verizon ad, it is very careful to position the consumer/user at the centre of the experience. The technology is described as wonderful not just in itself, but also precisely because it gives users “a larger canvas” with which to create. Likewise, the lifelogging movement (which encourages people to use small cameras to record every event of daily life) is at great pains to stress that “you, not your desktop’s hard drive, are the hub of your digital belongings” (Bell and Gemmell 10). But do users experience life with these devices as augmented? Is either the Verizon work cyborg or the iPad user’s singing heart representative of how these devices make us feel? It depends upon the context in which the question is asked. Extensive survey data on cell phone use shows that we are more attached than ever to our phones, that they allow us to be “productive” in otherwise dead times (such as while waiting in queues), and that only a minority of users worry about the negative effects of being “permanently connected” (Smith 9-10). Representations of technological augmentation in 21st century popular cinema, however, offer a very different perspective. Even in James Bond films, which (since Goldfinger in 1964) have been enraptured with technological devices as augmentations for its protagonists and as lures for audiences, digital devices have (in the three most recent films) lost their magic and become banal in the same way as they have in the lives of audience members (Nitins 2010; Nitins 2011; “List of James Bond Gadgets”). Rather than focusing on technological empowerment, the post 2006 Bond films emphasize (1) that ICTs “know” things and that human agents are just the media that connect them together; and (2) that the reciprocal nature of networked ICTs means that we are always visible when we use them; like Verizon phone users, our on-screen heroes have to learn that the same technology that empowers them simultaneously empowers others to know and/or control them. Using examples from the James Bond franchise, the remainder of this paper discusses the simultaneous disenchantment and power of ICT technology in the films as a representative sample of the cultural status of ICTs as a whole. “We don’t go in for that sort of thing any more...” From Goldfinger until the end of Pierce Brosnan’s tenure in 2002, technological devices were an important part of the audience’s pleasure in a Bond film (Willis; Nitins 2011). James Bond’s jetpack in Thunderball, to give one of many examples, is a quasi-magical aid for the hero with literary precursors going back to Aeneas’s golden bough; it is utterly enchanting and, equally importantly, fun. In the most recent Bond film, Skyfall, however, Q, the character who has historically made Bond’s technology, reappears after a two-film hiatus, but in the guise of a computer nerd who openly disdains the pleasures and possibilities of technological augmentation. When Bond complains about receiving only a gun and a radio from him, Q replies: “What did you expect? An exploding pen? We don’t really go in for that sort of thing any more.” Technology is henceforth to be banal and invisible albeit (as the film’s computer hacker villain Silva demonstrates) still incredibly powerful. The film’s pleasures must come from elsewhere. The post-credit sequence in Casino Royale, which involves the pursuit and eventual death of a terrorist bomb-maker, perfectly embodies the diminished importance of human agents as bearers of knowledge. It is bracketed at the beginning by the bomber looking at a text message while under surveillance by Bond and a colleague and at the end by Bond looking at the same message after having killed him. Significantly, the camera angle and setup of both shots make it impossible to distinguish between Bond’s hand and the bomber’s as they see the same piece of information on the same phone. The ideological, legal, racial, and other differences between the two men are erased in pursuit of the data (the name “Ellipsis” and a phone number) that they both covet. As digitally-transmitted data, it is there for anyone, completely unaffected by the moral or legal value attached to its users. Cell phones in these films are, in many ways, better sources of information than their owners—after killing a phone’s owner, his or her network traces can show exactly where s/he has been and to whom s/he has been talking, and this is how Bond proceeds. The bomber’s phone contacts lead Bond to the Bahamas, to the next villain in the chain, whom Bond kills and from whom he obtains another cell phone, which allows the next narrative location to be established (Miami Airport) and the next villain to be located (by calling his cell phone in a crowded room and seeing who answers) (Demetrios). There are no conventional interrogations needed here, because it is the digital devices that are the locus of knowledge rather than people. Even Bond’s lover Vesper Lynd sends her most important message to him (the name and cell phone number of the film’s arch villain) in a posthumous text, rather than in an actual conversation. Cell phones do not enable communication between people; people connect the important information that cell phones hold together. The second manifestation of the disenchantment of ICT technology is the disempowering omnipresence of surveillance. Bond and his colleague are noticed by the bomber when the colleague touches his supposedly invisible communication earpiece. With the audience’s point of view conflated with that of the secret agent, the technology of concealment becomes precisely what reveals the secret agent’s identity in the midst of a chaotic scene in which staying anonymous should be the easiest thing in the world; other villains identify Bond by the same means in a hotel hallway later in the film. While chasing the bomber, Bond is recorded by a surveillance camera in the act of killing him on the grounds of a foreign embassy. The secret agent is, as a result, made into an object of knowledge for the international media, prompting M (Bond’s boss) to exclaim that their political masters “don’t care what we do, they care what we get photographed doing.” Bond is henceforth part of the mediascape, so well known as a spy that he refuses to use the alias that MI6 provides for his climactic encounter with the main villain LeChiffre on the grounds that any well-connected master criminal will know who he is anyway. This can, of course, go both ways: Bond uses the omnipresence of surveillance to find another of his targets by using the security cameras of a casino. This one image contains many layers of reference—Bond the character has found his man; he has also found an iconic image from his own cultural past (the Aston Martin DB V car that is the only clearly delineated object in the frame) that he cannot understand as such because Casino Royale is a “reboot” and he has only just become 007. But the audience knows what it means and can insert this incarnation of James Bond in its historical sequence and enjoy the allusion to a past of which Bond is oblivious. The point is that surveillance is omnipresent, anonymity is impossible, and we are always being watched and interpreted by someone. This is true in the film’s narrative and also in the cultural/historical contexts in which the Bond films operate. It may be better to be the watcher rather than the watched, but we are always already both. By the end of the film, Bond is literally being framed by technological devices and becomes the organic connection between different pieces of technology. The literal centrality of the human agent in these images is not, in this disenchanted landscape, an indication of his importance. The cell phones to which Bond listens in these images connect him (and us) to the past, the back story or context provided by his masters that permits the audience to understand the complex plot that is unfolding before them. The devices at which he looks represent the future, the next situation or person that he must contain. He does not fully understand what is happening, but he is not there to understand – he is there to join the information held in the various devices together, which (in this film) usually means to kill someone. The third image in this sequence is from the final scene of the film, and the assault rifle marks this end—the chain of cell phone messages (direct and indirect) that has driven Casino Royale from its outset has been stopped. The narrative stops with it. Bond’s centrality amid these ICTS and their messages is simultaneously what allows him to complete his mission and what subjects him to their needs. This kind of technological power can be so banal precisely because it has been stripped of pleasure and of any kind of mystique. The conclusion of Skyfall reinforces this by inverting all of the norms that Bond films have created about their climaxes: instead of the technologically-empowered villain’s lair being destroyed, it is Bond’s childhood home that is blown up. Rather than beating the computer hacker at his own game, Bond kills him with a knife in a medieval Scottish church. It could hardly be less hi-tech if it tried, which is precisely the point. What the Bond franchise and the other films mentioned above have shown us, is that we do not rely on ICTs for enchantment any more because they are so powerfully connected to the everyday reality of work and to the loss of privacy that our digital devices exact as the price of their use. The advertising materials that sell them to us have to rely on the rhetoric of augmentation, but these films are signs that we do not experience them as empowering devices any more. The deeper irony is that (for once) the ICT consumer products being advertised to us today really do what their promotional materials claim: they are faster, more powerful, and more widely applicable in our lives than ever before. Without the user fantasy of augmentation, however, this truth has very little power to move us. We depict ourselves as the medium, and it is our digital devices that bear the message.References“Apple Special Event. March 2, 2011.” Apple Events. 21 Sep. 2013 ‹http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1103pijanbdvaaj/event/index.html›. Bell, Gordon, and Jim Gemmell. Total Recall: How the E-Memory Revolution Will Change Everything. New York: Dutton, 2009.“The Best of Both Worlds: Part Two.” Star Trek: The Next Generation. Dir. Cliff Bole. Paramount, 2013. The Bourne Legacy. Dir. Tony Gilroy. Universal Pictures, 2012. Britton, Wesley. Beyond Bond: Spies in Fiction and Film. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005. Buchanan, Allen. Beyond Humanity: The Ethics of Biomedical Enhancement. Uehiro Series in Practical Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Casino Royale. Dir. Martin Campbell. Columbia Pictures, 2006. “Data’s Day.” Star Trek: The Next Generation. Dir. Robert Wiemer. Burbank, CA: Paramount, 2013. The Ghost Writer. Dir. Roman Polanski. R.P. Productions/France 2 Cinéma, 2010. “Humanity +”. 25 Aug. 2013 ‹http://humanityplus.org›. Kelly, Kevin. What Technology Wants. New York: Viking, 2010. Levin, Ira. The Stepford Wives. Introd. Peter Straub. New York: William Morrow, 2002. Lilley, Stephen. Transhumanism and Society: The Social Debate over Human Enhancement. New York: Springer, 2013. “List of James Bond Gadgets.” Wikipedia. 11 Nov. 2013 ‹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_James_Bond_gadgets›. The Manchurian Candidate. Dir. Jonathan Demme. Paramount, 2004. McCarthy, John, and Peter Wright. Technology as Experience. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004. McCarthy, John, et al. “The Experience of Enchantment in Human–Computer Interaction.” Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 10 (2006): 369-78. “Mobile Cellular Subscriptions (per 100 People).” The World Bank. 25 March 2013 ‹http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.CEL.SETS.P2›. Nitins, Tanya L. “A Boy and His Toys: Technology and Gadgetry in the James Bond Films.” James Bond in World and Popular Culture: The Films Are Not Enough. Eds. Rob Weiner, B. Lynn Whitfield, and Jack Becker. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. 445-58. ———. Selling James Bond: Product Placement in the James Bond Films. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011. Nye, David E. Technology Matters—Questions to Live With. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. Pratt, Andy, and Jason Nunes Interactive Design: An Introduction to the Theory and Application of User-Centered Design. Beverly, MA: Rockport, 2012. Quantum of Solace. Dir: Marc Foster, Eon Productions, 2008. DVD. Savulescu, Julian, and Nick Bostrom, eds. Human Enhancement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Skyfall. Dir. Sam Mendes. Eon Productions, 2012. Smith, Aaron. The Best and Worst of Mobile Connectivity. Pew Internet & American Life Project. Pew Research Center. 25 Aug. 2013 ‹http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Best-Worst-Mobile.aspx›. Thunderball. Dir. Terence Young. Eon Productions, 1965. “Verizon Commercial – Droid DNA ‘Hyper Intelligence’.” 11 April 2013 ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYIAaBOb5Bo›. Willis, Martin. “Hard-Wear: The Millenium, Technology, and Brosnan’s Bond.” The James Bond Phenomenon: A Critical Reader. Ed. Christoph Linder. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001. 151-65.

Introduction Tiffany and Co. is an American luxury jewellery and specialty retailer with its headquarters in New York City. Each piece of jewellery, symbolically packaged in a blue box and tied with a white bow, encapsulates the brand’s unique diamond pieces, symbolic origin story, branded historical contributions and representations in culture. Cultural brands are those that live and thrive in the minds of consumers (Holt). Their brand promise inspires loyalty and trust. These brands offer experiences, products, and personalities and spark emotional connotations within consumers (Arvidsson). This case study uses Tiffany & Co. as a successful example to reveal the importance of understanding consumers, the influential nature of media culture, and the efficacy of strategic branding, advertising, and marketing over time (Holt). It also reveals how Tiffany & Co. earned and maintained its place as an iconic cultural brand within consumer culture, through its strong association with New York and products from abroad. Through its trademarked logo and authentic luxury jewellery, encompassed in the globally recognised “Tiffany Blue” boxes, Tiffany & Co.’s cultural significance stems from its embodiment of the expected makings of a brand (Chernatony et al.). However, what propels this brand into what Douglas Holt terms “iconic territory” is that in its one hundred and seventy-nine years of existence, Tiffany’s has lived exclusively in the minds of its consumers.Tiffany & Co.’s intuitive prowess in reaching its target audience is what allows it to dominate the luxury jewellery market (Halasz et al.). This is not only a result of product value, but the alluring nature of the “Tiffany's from New York” brand imagery and experience (Holt et al.), circulated and celebrated in consumer culture through influential depictions in music, film and literature over time (Knight). Tiffany’s faithfully participates in the magnetic identity myth embodied by the brand and city, and has become globally sought after by consumers near and far, and recognised for its romantic connotations of love, luxury, and New York (Holt). An American Dream: New York Affiliation & Diamond OriginsIt was Truman Capote’s characterisation of Holly Golightly in his book (1958) and film adaption, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) that introduced the world to New York as the infatuating “setting,” upon which the Tiffany’s diamond rested. It was a place, that enabled the iconic Holly Golightly to personify the feeling of being abroad in New York and to demonstrate the seductive nature of a Tiffany’s store experience, further shaping the identity myth encompassed by the brand and the city for their global audience (Holt). Essentially, New York was the influential cultural instigator that propelled Tiffany & Co. from a consumer product, to a cultural icon. It did this by circulating its iconography via celebrity affiliations and representations in music, film, and literature (Knight), and by guiding strong brand associations in the minds of consumers (Arvidsson). However, before Tiffany’s became culturally iconic, it established its place in American heritage through historical contributions (Tiffany & Co.) and pledged an association to New York by personifying the American Dream (Mae). To help achieve his dream in a rapidly evolving economy (Elliott), Charles Lewis Tiffany purportedly brought the first substantial gemstones into America from overseas, and established the first American jewellery store to sell them to the public (Halasz et al.). The Tiffany & Co. origin story personifies the alluring nature of products from abroad, and their influence on individuals seeking an image of affluence for themselves. The ties between New York, Tiffany’s, and its consumers were further strengthened through the established, invaluable and emblematic nature of the diamond, historically launched and controlled by South African Diamond Cartel of De Beers (Twitchell). De Beers manipulated the demand for diamonds and instigated it as a status symbol. It then became a commoditised measurement of an individual’s worth and potential to love (Twitchell), a philosophy, also infused in the Tiffany & Co. brand ideology (Holt). Building on this, Tiffany’s further ritualised the justification of the material symbolisation of love through the idealistic connotations surrounding its assorted diamond ring experiences (Lee). This was projected through a strategic product placement and targeted advertising scheme, evident in dominant culture throughout the brand’s existence (Twitchell). Idealistically discussed by Purinton, this is also what exemplified, for consumers, the enticing cultural symbolism of the crystal rock from New York (Halasz et al.). Brand Essence: Experience & Iconography Prior to pop culture portraying the charming Tiffany’s brand imagery in mainstream media (Balmer et al.), Charles Tiffany directed the company’s ascent into luxury jewellery (Phillips et al.), fashioned the enticing Tiffany’s “store experience”, and initiated the experiential process of purchasing a diamond product. This immediately intertwined the imagery of Tiffany’s with New York, instigating the exclusivity of the experience for consumers (Holt). Tiffany’s provided customers with the opportunity to participate in an intricately branded journey, resulting in the diamond embodiment which declared their love most accurately; a token, packaged and presented within an iconic “Tiffany Blue” box (Klara). Aligning with Keller’s branding blueprint (7), this interactive process enabled Tiffany & Co. to build brand loyalty by consistently connecting with each of its consumers, regardless of their location in the world. The iconography of the coveted “blue box” was crafted when Charles Tiffany trademarked the shade Pantone No. 1837 (Osborne), which he coined for the year of Tiffany’s founding (Klara). Along with the brand promise of containing quality luxury jewellery, the box and that particular shade of blue instantly became a symbol of exclusivity, sophistication, and elegance, as it could only be acquired by purchasing jewellery from a Tiffany’s store (Rawlings). The exclusive packaging began to shape Tiffany’s global brand image, becoming a signifier of style and superiority (Phillips et al.), and eventually just as iconic as the jewellery itself. The blue box is still the strongest signifier of the brand today (Osborne). Ultimately, individuals want to participate in the myth of love, perfection and wealth (Arvidsson), encompassed exclusively by every Tiffany’s “blue box”. Furthermore, Tiffany’s has remained artistically significant within the luxury jewellery landscape since introducing its one-of-a-kind Tiffany Setting in 1886. It was the first jewellery store to fully maximise the potential of the natural beauty possessed of diamonds, while connotatively reflecting the natural beauty of every wearer (Phillips et al.). According to Jeffrey Bennett, the current Vice President of Tiffany & Co. New York, by precisely perching the “Tiffany Diamond” upon six intricately crafted silver prongs, the ring shines to its maximum capacity in a lit environment, while being closely secured to the wearer’s finger (Lee). Hence, the “Tiffany Setting” has become a universally sought after icon of extravagance and intricacy (Knight), and, as Bennett further describes, even today, the setting represents uncompromising quality and is a standard image of true love (Lee). Alluring Brand Imagery & Influential Representations in CultureEmpirical consumer research, involving two focus groups of married and unmarried, ethnically diverse Australian women and conducted in 2015, revealed that even today, individuals accredit their desire for Tiffany’s to the inspirational imagery portrayed in music, movies and television. Through participating in the Tiffany's from New York store experience, consumers are able to indulge in their fantasies of what it would feel like to be abroad and the endless potential a city such as New York could hold for them. Tiffany’s successfully disseminated its brand ideology into consumer culture (Purinton) and extended the brand’s significance for consumers beyond the 1960s through constant representation of the expensive business of love, lust and marriage within media culture. This is demonstrated in such films as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Legally Blonde (2001), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), The Great Gatsby (2013), and in the influential television shows, Gossip Girl (2007—2012), and Glee (2009—2015).The most important of these was the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), and the iconic embodiment of Capote’s (1958) Holly Golightly by actress Audrey Hepburn (Wasson). Hepburn’s (1961) portrayal of the emotionally evocative connotations of experiencing Tiffany’s in New York, as personified by her romantic dialogue throughout the film (Mae), produced the image that nothing bad could ever happen at a Tiffany’s store. Thus began the Tiffany’s from New York cultural phenomenon, which has been consistently reiterated in popular media culture ever since.Breakfast at Tiffany’s also represented a greater struggle faced by women in the 1960s (Dutt); that of gender roles, women’s place in society, and their desire for stability and freedom simultaneously (Sheehan). Due to Hepburn’s accurate characterisation of this struggle, the film enabled Tiffany & Co. to become more than just jewellery and a symbol of support (Torelli). Tiffany’s also allowed filming to take place inside its New York flagship store to which Capote’s narrative so idealistically alludes, further demonstrating its support for the 1960s women’s movement at an opportune moment in history (Torelli). Hence, Tiffany’s from New York became a symbol for the independent materialistic modern woman (Wasson), an ideal, which has become a repeated motif, re-imagined and embodied by popular icons (Knight) such as, Madonna in Material Girl (1985), and the characterisations of Carrie Bradshaw by Sarah Jessica Parker, Charlotte York by Kristin Davis (Sex and the City), and Donna Paulsen by Sarah Rafferty (Suits). The iconic television series Sex and the City, set in New York, boldly represented Tiffany’s as a symbol of friendship when a fellow female protagonist parted with her lavish Tiffany’s engagement ring to help her friend financially (Sex and the City). This was similarly reimagined in the popular television series Suits, also set in New York, where a protagonist is gifted two Tiffany Boxes from her female friend, as a token of congratulations on her engagement. This allowed Tiffany & Co. to add friendship to its symbolic repertoire (Manning), whilst still personifying a symbol of love in the minds of its consumers who were tactically also the target audiences of these television shows (Wharton).The alluring Tiffany’s image was presented specifically to a male audience through the first iconic Bond Girl named Tiffany Case in the novel Diamonds Are Forever (Fleming). The film adaption made its cultural imprint in 1971 with Sean Connery portraying James Bond, and paired the exaggerated brand of “007” with the evocative imagery of Tiffany’s (Spilski et al.). This served as a reminder to existing audiences about the powerful and seductive connotations of the blue box with the white ribbon (Osborne), as depicted by the enticing Tiffany Case in 1956.Furthermore, the Tiffany’s image was similarly established as a lyrical status symbol of wealth and indulgence (Knight). Portrayed most memorably by Marilyn Monroe’s iconic performance of Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes). Even though the song only mentions Tiffany’s lyrically twice (Vito et al.), through the celebrity affiliation, Monroe was introduced as a credible embodiment of Tiffany’s brand essence (Davis). Consequently, she permanently attached her image to that of the alluring Tiffany Diamonds for the target audience, male and female, past and present (Vito et al.). Exactly thirty-two years later, Monroe’s 1953 depiction was reinforced in consumer culture (Wharton) through an uncanny aesthetic and lyrical reimagining of the original performance by Madonna in her music video Material Girl (1985). This further preserved and familiarised the Tiffany’s image of glamour, luxury and beauty by implanting it in the minds of a new generation (Knight). Despite the shift in celebrity affiliation to a current cultural communicator (Arvidsson), the influential image of the Tiffany Diamond remains constant and Tiffany’s has maintained its place as a popular signifier of affluence and elegance in mainstream consumer culture (Jansson). The main difference, however, between Monroe’s and Madonna’s depictions is that Madonna aspired to be associated with the Tiffany’s brand image because of her appreciation for Marilyn Monroe and her brand image, which also intrinsically exuded beauty, money and glamour (Vito et al.). This suggests that even a musical icon like Madonna was influenced by Tiffany & Co.’s hold on consumer culture (Spilski et al.), and was able to inject the same ideals into her own loyal fan base (Fill). It is evident that Tiffany & Co. is thoroughly in tune with its target market and understands the relevant routes into the minds of its consumers. Kotler (113) identifies that the brand has demonstrated the ability to reach its separate audiences simultaneously, with an image that resonates with them on different levels (Manning). For example, Tiffany & Co. created the jewellery that featured in Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 cinematic adaption of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby (1925). Through representing a signifier of love and lust induced by monetary possessions (Fitzgerald), Tiffany’s truthfully portrayed its own brand image and persuaded audiences to associate the brand with these ideals (Holt). By illustrating the romantic, alluring and powerful symbolism of giving or obtaining love, armed with a Tiffany’s Diamond (Mae), Tiffany’s validated its timeless, historical and cultural contemporary relevance (Greene).This was also most recently depicted through Tiffany & Co.’s Will You (2015) advertising campaign. The brand demonstrated its support for marriage equality, by featuring a real life same-sex couple to symbolise that love is not conditional and that Tiffany’s has something that signifies every relationship (Dicker). Thus, because of the brand’s rooted place in central media culture and the ability to appeal to the belief system of its target market while evolving with, and understanding its consumers on a level of metonymy (Manning), Tiffany & Co. has transitioned from a consumer product to a culturally relevant and globally sought-after iconic brand (Holt). ConclusionTiffany & Co.’s place-based association and representational reflection in music, film, and literature, assisted in the formation of loyal global communities that thrive on the identity building side effects associated with luxury brand affiliation (Banet-Weiser et al.). Tiffany’s enables its global target market to revel in the shared meanings surrounding the brand, by signifying a symbolic construct that resonates with consumers (Hall). Tiffany’s inspires consumers to eagerly exercise their brand trust and loyalty by independently ritualising the Tiffany’s from New York brand experience for themselves and the ones they love (Fill). Essentially, Tiffany & Co. successfully established its place in society and strengthened its ties to New York, through targeted promotions and iconographic brand dissemination (Nita).Furthermore, by ritualistically positioning the brand (Holt), surrounding and saturating it in existing cultural practices, supporting significant cultural actions and becoming a symbol of wealth, luxury, commitment, love and exclusivity (Phillips et al.), Tiffany’s has steadily built a positive brand association and desire in the minds of consumers near and far (Keller). As a direct result, Tiffany’s earned and kept its place as a culturally progressive brand in New York and around the world, sustaining its influence and ensuring its survival in today’s contemporary consumer society (Holt).Most importantly, however, although New York has become the anchor in every geographically exemplified Tiffany’s store experience in literature, New York has also become the allegorical anchor in the minds of consumers in actuality (Arvidsson). Hence, Tiffany & Co. has catered to the needs of its global target audience by providing it with convenient local stores abroad, where their love can be personified by purchasing a Tiffany Diamond, the ultimate symbol of authentic commitment, and where they can always experience an allusive piece of New York. ReferencesArvidsson, Adam. Brands: Meaning and Value in Media Culture. New York: Routledge, 2006.Balmer, John M.T., Stephen A. 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IntroductionThis short article examines contemporary artistic use of walkie-talkies across two projects: Saturday (2002) by Sabrina Raaf and Walk That Sound (2014) by Lukatoyboy. Drawing on Dominic Pettman’s notion of sonic intimacy, I argue that both artists incorporate walkie-talkies as part of their explorations of mediated wandering, and in ways that seek to capture sonic ambiances and intimacies. One thing that is striking about both these works is that they rethink what’s possible with walkie-talkies; both artists use them not just as low-tech, portable devices for one-to-one communication over distance, but also—and more strikingly—as (covert) recording equipment for capturing, while wandering, snippets of intimate conversation between passers-by and the “voice” of the surrounding environment. Both artworks strive to make the familiar strange. They prompt us to question our preconceived perceptions of, and affective engagements with, the people and places around us, to listen more attentively to the voices of others (and the “Other”), and to aurally inhabit in new ways the spaces and places we find ourselves in and routinely pass through.The walkie-talkie is an established, simple communication device, consisting of a two-way radio transceiver with a speaker and microphone (in some cases, the speaker is also used as the microphone) and an antenna (Wikipedia). Walkie-talkies are half-duplex communication devices, meaning that they use a single radio channel: only one radio on the channel can transmit at a time, but many can listen; when a user wishes to talk, they must turn off the receiver and turn on the transmitter by pressing a push-to-talk button (Wikipedia). In some models, static—known as squelch—is produced each time the push-to-talk button is depressed. The push-to-talk button is a feature of both projects: in Saturday, it transforms the walkie-talkie into a cheap, portable recorder-transmitter. In Walk That Sound, rapid fire exchanges of conversation using the push-to-talk button feature strongly.Interestingly, walkie-talkies were developed during World War Two. While they continue to be used within certain industrial settings, they are perhaps best known as a “quaint” household toy and “fun tool” (Smith). Early print ads for walkie-talkie toys marketed them as a form of both spyware for kids (with the Gabriel Toy Co. releasing a 007-themed walkie-talkie set) and as a teletechnology for communication over distance—“how thrilling to ‘speak through space!’”, states one ad (Statuv “New!”). What is noteworthy about these early ads is that they actively promote experimental use of walkie-talkies. For instance, a 1953 ad for Vibro-Matic “Space Commander” walkie-talkies casts them as media transmission devices, suggesting that, with them, one can send and receive “voice – songs – music” (Statuv “New!”). In addition, a 1962 ad for the Knight-Kit walkie-talkie imagines “you’ll find new uses for this exciting walkie-talkie every day” (Statuv “Details”). Resurgent interest in walkie-talkies has seen them also promoted more recently as intimate tools “for communication without asking permission to communicate” (“Nextel”); this is to say that they have been marketed as devices for synchronous or immediate communication that overcome the limits of asynchronous communication, such as texting, where there might be substantial delays between the sending of a message and receipt of a response. Within this context, it is not surprising that Snapchat and Instagram have also since added “walkie-talkie” features to their messaging services. The Nextel byline, emphasising “without asking permission”, also speaks to the possibilities of using walkie-talkies as rudimentary forms of spyware.Within art practice that explores mediated forms of wandering—that is, walking while using media and various “remote transmission technologies” (Duclos 233)—walkie-talkies hold appeal for a number of reasons, including their particular aesthetic qualities, such as the crackling or static sound (squelch) that one encounters when using them; their portability; their affordability; and, the fact that, while they can be operated on multiple channels, they tend to be regarded primarily as devices that permit two-way, one-to-one (and therefore intimate, if not secure) remote communication. As we will see below, however, contemporary artists, such as the aforementioned earlier advertisers, have also been very attentive to the device’s experimental possibilities. Perhaps the best known (if possibly apocryphal) example of artistic use of walkie-talkies is by the Situationist International as part of their explorations in urban wandering (a revolutionary strategy called dérive). In the Situationist text from 1960, Die Welt als Labyrinth (Anon.), there is a detailed account of how walkie-talkies were to form part of a planned dérive, which was organised by the Dutch section of the Situationist International, through the city of Amsterdam, but which never went ahead:Two groups, each containing three situationists, would dérive for three days, on foot or eventually by boat (sleeping in hotels along the way) without leaving the center of Amsterdam. By means of the walkie-talkies with which they would be equipped, these groups would remain in contact, with each other, if possible, and in any case with the radio-truck of the cartographic team, from where the director of the dérive—in this case Constant [Nieuwenhuys]—moving around so as to maintain contact, would define their routes and sometimes give instructions (it was also the director of the dérive’s responsibility to prepare experiments at certain locations and secretly arranged events.) (Anon.) This proposed dérive formed part of Situationist experiments in unitary urbanism, a process that consisted of “making different parts of the city communicate with one another.” Their ambition was to create new situations informed by, among other things, encounters and atmospheres that were registered through dérive in order to reconnect parts of the city that were separated spatially (Lefebvre quoted in Lefebvre and Ross 73). In an interview with Kristin Ross, Henri Lefebvre insists that the Situationists “did have their experiments; I didn’t participate. They used all kinds of means of communication—I don’t know when exactly they were using walkie-talkies. But I know they were used in Amsterdam and in Strasbourg” (Lefebvre quoted in Lefebvre and Ross 73). However, as Rebecca Duclos points out, such use “is, in fact, not well documented”, and “none of the more well-known reports on situationist activity […] specifically mentions the use of walkie-talkies within their descriptive narratives” (Duclos 233). In the early 2000s, walkie-talkies also figured prominently, alongside other media devices, in at least two location-based gaming projects by renowned British art collective Blast Theory, Can You See Me Now? (2001) and You Get Me (2008). In the first of these projects, participants in the game (“online players”) competed against members of Blast Theory (“runners”), tracking them through city streets via a GPS-enabled handheld computer that runners carried with them. The goal for online players was to move an avatar they created through a virtual map of the city as multiple runners “pursued their avatar’s geographical coordinates in real-time” (Leorke). As Dale Leorke explains, “Players could see the locations of the runners and other players and exchange text messages with other players” (Leorke 27), and runners could “read players’ messages and communicate directly with each other through a walkie-talkie” (28). An audio stream from these walkie-talkie conversations allowed players to eavesdrop on their pursuers (Blast Theory, Can You See Me Now?).You Get Me was similarly structured, with online players and “runners” (eight teenagers who worked with Blast Theory on the game). Remotely situated online players began the game by listening to the “personal geography” of the runners over a walkie-talkie stream (Blast Theory, You Get Me). They then selected one runner, and tracked them down by navigating their own avatar, without being caught, through a virtual version of Mile End Park in London, in pursuit of their chosen runner who was moving about the actual Mile End Park. Once their chosen runner was contacted, the player had to respond to a question that the runner posed to them. If the runner was satisfied with the player’s answer, conversation switched to “the privacy of a mobile phone” in order to converse further; if not, the player was thrown back into the game (Blast Theory, You Get Me). A key aim of Blast Theory’s work, as I have argued elsewhere (Wilken), is the fostering of interactions and fleeting intimacies between relative and complete strangers. The walkie-talkie is a key tool in both the aforementioned Blast Theory projects for facilitating these interactions and intimacies.Beyond these well-known examples, walkie-talkies have been employed in productive and exploratory ways by other artists. The focus in this article is on two specific projects: the first by US-based sound artist Sabrina Raaf, called Saturday (2002) and the second by Serbian sound designer Lukatoyboy (Luka Ivanović), titled Walk That Sound (2014). Sonic IntimaciesThe concept that gives shape and direction to the analysis of the art projects by Raaf and Lukatoyboy and their use of walkie-talkies is that of sonic intimacy. This is a concept of emerging critical interest across media and sound studies and geography (see, for example, James; Pettman; Gallagher and Prior). Sonic intimacy, as Dominic Pettman explains, is composed of two simultaneous yet opposing orientations. On the one hand, sonic intimacy involves a “turning inward, away from the wider world, to more private and personal experiences and relationships” (79). While, on the other hand, it also involves a turning outward, to seek and heed “the voice of the world” (79)—or what Pettman refers to as the “vox mundi” (66). Pettman conceives of the “vox mundi” as an “ecological voice”, whereby “all manner of creatures, agents, entities, objects, and phenomena” (79) have the opportunity to speak to us, if only we were prepared to listen to our surroundings in new and different ways. In a later passage, he also refers to the “vox mundi” as a “carrier or potentially enlightening alterity” (83). Voices, Pettman writes, “transgress the neat divisions we make between ‘us’ and ‘them’, at all scales and junctures” (6). Thus, Pettman’s suggestion is that “by listening to the ‘voices’ that lie dormant in the surrounding world […] we may in turn foster a more sustainable relationship with [the] local matrix of specific existences” (85), be they human or otherwise.This formulation of sonic intimacy provides a productive conceptual frame for thinking through Raaf’s and Lukatoyboy’s use of walkie-talkies. The contention in this article is that these two projects are striking for the way that they both use walkie-talkies to explore, simultaneously, this double articulation or dual orientation of sonic intimacy—a turning inwards to capture more private and personal experiences and conversations, and a turning outwards to capture the vox mundi. Employing Pettman’s notion of sonic intimacy as a conceptual frame, I trace below the different ways that these two projects incorporate walkie-talkies in order to develop mediated forms of wandering that seek to capture place-based sonic ambiances and sonic intimacies.Sabrina Raaf, Saturday (2002)US sound artist Sabrina Raaf’s Saturday (2002) is a sound-based art installation based on recordings of “stolen conversations” that Raaf gathered over many Saturdays in Humboldt Park, Chicago. Raaf’s work harks back to the early marketing of walkie-talkie toys as spyware. In Raaf’s hands, this device is used not for engaging in intimate one-to-one conversation, but for listening in on, and capturing, the intimate conversations of others. In other words, she uses this device, as the Nextel slogan goes, for “communication without permission to communicate” (“Nextel”). Raaf’s inspiration for the piece was twofold. First, she has noted that “with the overuse of radio frequency bands for wireless communications, there comes the increased occurrence of crossed lines where a private conversation becomes accidentally shared” (Raaf). Reminiscent of Francis Ford Coppola’s film The Conversation (1974), in which surveillance expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) records the conversation of a couple as they walk through crowded Union Square in San Francisco, Raaf used a combination of walkie-talkies, CB radios, and “various other forms of consumer spy […] technology in order to actively harvest such communication leaks” (Raaf). The second source of inspiration was noticing the “sheer quantity of non-phone, low tech, radio transmissions that were constantly being sent around [the] neighbourhood”, transmissions that were easily intercepted. These conversations were eclectic in composition and character:The transmissions included communications between gang members on street corners nearby and group conversations between friends talking about changes in the neighbourhood and their families. There were raw, intimate conversations and often even late night sex talk between potential lovers. (Raaf)What struck Raaf about these conversations, these transmissions, was that there was “a furtive quality” to most of them, and “a particular daringness to their tone”.During her Saturday wanderings, Raaf complemented her recordings of stolen snippets of conversation with recordings of the “voice” of the surrounding neighbourhood—“the women singing out their windows to their radios, the young men in their low rider cars circling the block, the children, the ice cream carts, etc. These are the sounds that are mixed into the piece” (Raaf).Audience engagement with Saturday involves a kind of austere intimacy of its own that seems befitting of a surveillance-inspired sonic portrait of urban and private life. The piece is accessed via an interactive glove. This glove is white in colour and about the size of a large gardening glove, with a Velcro strap that fastens across the hand, like a cycling glove. The glove, which only has coverings for thumb and first two fingers (it is missing the ring and little fingers) is wired into and rests on top of a roughly A4-sized white rectangular box. This box, which is mounted onto the wall of an all-white gallery space at the short end, serves as a small shelf. The displayed glove is illuminated by a discrete, bent-arm desk lamp, that protrudes from the shelf near the gallery wall. Above the shelf are a series of wall-mounted colour images that relate to the project. In order to hear the soundtrack of Saturday, gallery visitors approach the shelf, put on the glove, and “magically just press their fingertips to their forehead [to] hear the sound without the use of their ears” (Raaf). The glove, Raaf explains, “is outfitted with leading edge audio electronic devices called ‘bone transducers’ […]. These transducers transmit sound in a very unusual fashion. They translate sound into vibration patterns which resonate through bone” (Raaf).Employing this technique, Raaf explains, “permits a new way of listening”:The user places their fingers to their forehead—in a gesture akin to Rodin’s The Thinker or of a clairvoyant—in order to tap into the lives of strangers. Pressing different combinations of fingers to the temple yield plural viewpoints and group conversations. These sounds are literally mixed in the bones of the listener. (Raaf) The result is a (literally and figuratively) touching sonic portrait of Humboldt Park, its residents, and the “voice” of its surrounding neighbourhoods. Through the unique technosomatic (Richardson) apparatus—combinations of gestures that convey the soundscape directly through the bones and body—those engaging with Saturday get to hear voices in/of/around Humboldt Park. It is a portrait that combines sonic intimacy in the two forms described earlier in this article. In its inward-focused form, the gallery visitor-listener is positioned as a voyeur of sorts, listening into stolen snippets of private and personal relationships, experiences, and interactions. And, in its outward-focused form, the gallery visitor-listener encounters a soundscape in which an array of agents, entities, and objects are also given a voice. Additional work performed by this piece, it seems to me, is to be found in the intermingling of these two form of sonic intimacy—the personal and the environmental—and the way that they prompt reflection on mediation, place, urban life, others, and intimacy. That is to say that, beyond its particular sonic portrait of Humboldt Park, Saturday works in “clearing some conceptual space” in the mind of the departing gallery visitor such that they might “listen for, if not precisely to, the collective, polyphonic ‘voice of the world’” (Pettman 6) as they go about their day-to-day lives.Lukatoyboy, Walk That Sound (2014)The second project, Walk That Sound, by Serbian sound artist Lukatoyboy was completed for the 2014 CTM festival. CTM is an annual festival event that is staged in Berlin and dedicated to “adventurous music and art” (CTM Festival, “About”). A key project within the festival is CTM Radio Lab. The Lab supports works, commissioned by CTM Festival and Deutschlandradio Kultur – Hörspiel/Klangkunst (among other partnering organisations), that seek to pair and explore the “specific artistic possibilities of radio with the potentials of live performance or installation” (CTM Festival, “Projects”). Lukatoyboy’s Walk That Sound was one of two commissioned pieces for the 2014 CTM Radio Lab. The project used the “commonplace yet often forgotten walkie-talkie” (CTM Festival, “Projects”) to create a moving urban sound portrait in the area around the Kottbusser Tor U-Bahn station in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Walk That Sound recruited participants—“mobile scouts”—to rove around the Kottbusser Tor area (CTM Festival, “Projects”). Armed with walkie-talkies, and playing with “the array of available and free frequencies, and the almost unlimited amount of users that can interact over these different channels”, the project captured the dispatches via walkie-talkie of each participant (CTM Festival, “Projects”). The resultant recording of Walk That Sound—which was aired on Deutschlandradio (see Lukatoyboy), part of a long tradition of transmitting experimental music and sound art on German radio (Cory)—forms an eclectic soundscape.The work juxtaposes snippets of dialogue shared between the mobile scouts, overheard mobile phone conversations, and moments of relative quietude, where the subdued soundtrack is formed by the ambient sounds—the “voice”—of the Kottbusser Tor area. This voice includes distant traffic, the distinctive auditory ticking of pedestrian lights, and moments of tumult and agitation, such as the sounds of construction work, car horns, emergency services vehicle sirens, a bottle bouncing on the pavement, and various other repetitive yet difficult to identify industrial sounds. This voice trails off towards the end of the recording into extended walkie-talkie produced static or squelch. The topics covered within the “crackling dialogues” (CTM Festival, “Projects”) of the mobile scouts ranged widely. There were banal observations (“I just stepped on a used tissue”; “people are crossing the street”; “there are 150 trains”)—wonderings that bear strong similarities with French writer Georges Perec’s well-known experimental descriptions of everyday Parisian life in the 1970s (Perec “An Attempt”). There were also intimate, confiding, flirtatious remarks (“Do you want to come to Turkey with me?”), as well as a number of playfully paranoid observations and quips (“I like to lie”; “I can see you”; “do you feel like you are being recorded?”; “I’m being followed”) that seem to speak to the fraught history of Berlin in particular as well as the complicated character of urban life in general—as Pettman asks, “what does ‘together’ signify in a socioeconomic system so efficient in producing alienation and isolation?” (92).In sum, Walk That Sound is a strangely moving exploration of sonic intimacy, one that shifts between many different registers and points of focus—much like urban wandering itself. As a work, it is variously funny, smart, paranoid, intimate, expansive, difficult to decipher, and, at times, even difficult to listen to. Pettman argues that, “thanks in large part to the industrialization of the human ear […], we have lost the capacity to hear the vox mundi, which is […] the sum total of cacophonous, heterogeneous, incommensurate, and unsynthesizable sounds of the postnatural world” (8). Walk That Sound functions almost like a response to this dilemma. One comes away from listening to it with a heightened awareness of, appreciation for, and aural connection to the rich messiness of the polyphonic contemporary urban vox mundi. ConclusionThe argument of this article is that Sabrina Raaf’s Saturday and Lukatoyboy’s Walk That Sound are two projects that both incorporate walkie-talkies in order to develop mediated forms of wandering that seek to capture place-based sonic ambiances and sonic intimacies. Drawing on Pettman’s notion of “sonic intimacy”, examination of these projects has opened consideration around voice, analogue technology, and what Nick Couldry refers to as “an obligation to listen” (Couldry 580). In order to be heard, Pettman remarks, and “in order to be considered a voice at all”, and therefore as “something worth heeding”, the vox mundi “must arrive intimately, or else it is experienced as noise or static” (Pettman 83). In both the projects discussed here—Saturday and Walk That Sound—the walkie-talkie provides this means of “intimate arrival”. As half-duplex communication devices, walkie-talkies have always fulfilled a double function: communicating and listening. This dual functionality is exploited in new ways by Raaf and Lukatoyboy. In their projects, both artists turn the microphone outwards, such that the walkie-talkie becomes not just a device for communicating while in the field, but also—and more strikingly—it becomes a field recording device. The result of which is that this simple, “playful” communication device is utilised in these two projects in two ways: on the one hand, as a “carrier of potentially enlightening alterity” (Pettman 83), a means of encouraging “potential encounters” (89) with strangers who have been thrown together and who cross paths, and, on the other hand, as a means of fostering “an environmental awareness” (89) of the world around us. In developing these prompts, Raaf and Lukatoyboy build potential bridges between Pettman’s work on sonic intimacy, their own work, and the work of other experimental artists. For instance, in relation to potential encounters, there are clear points of connection with Blast Theory, a group who, as noted earlier, have utilised walkie-talkies and sound-based and other media technologies to explore issues around urban encounters with strangers that promote reflection on ideas and experiences of otherness and difference (see Wilken)—issues that are also implicit in the two works examined. In relation to environmental awareness, their work—as well as Pettman’s calls for greater sonic intimacy—brings renewed urgency to Georges Perec’s encouragement to “question the habitual” and to account for, and listen carefully to, “the common, the ordinary, the infraordinary, the background noise” (Perec “Approaches” 210).Walkie-talkies, for Raaf and Lukatoyboy, when reimagined as field recording devices as much as remote transmission technologies, thus “allow new forms of listening, which in turn afford new forms of being together” (Pettman 92), new forms of being in the world, and new forms of sonic intimacy. Both these artworks engage with, and explore, what’s at stake in a politics and ethics of listening. Pettman prompts us, as urban dweller-wanderers, to think about how we might “attend to the act of listening itself, rather than to a specific sound” (Pettman 1). His questioning, as this article has explored, is answered by the works from Raaf and Lukatoyboy in effective style and technique, setting up opportunities for aural attentiveness and experiential learning. However, it is up to us whether we are prepared to listen carefully and to open ourselves to such intimate sonic contact with others and with the environments in which we live.ReferencesAnon. “Die Welt als Labyrinth.” Internationale Situationiste 4 (Jan. 1960). International Situationist Online, 19 June 2019 <https://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/diewelt.html>Blast Theory. “Can You See Me Now?” Blast Theory, 19 June 2019 <https://www.blasttheory.co.uk/projects/can-you-see-me-now/>.———. “You Get Me.” Blast Theory, 19 June 2019 <https://wwww.blasttheory.co.uk/projects/you-get-me/>.Cory, Mark E. “Soundplay: The Polyphonous Tradition of German Radio Art.” Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio, and the Avant-garde. Eds. Douglas Kahn and Gregory Whitehead. 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