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This chapter examines the relationship between loose and tight audiovisual synchronization in two recent instances, both of which speak to an aesthetic of repurposing in new audiovisual expression. The case studies discuss Philip Glass's cinematic opera La Belle et la Bête, an operatic adaptation of Jean Cocteau's original film, and “syncing” practices, represented here by the synchronization of Wizard of Oz with Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. Both forms are seen in the light of an avant-garde lineage that destabilizes the binary opposition of art and life. Both in different ways draw attention to new forms of technological estrangement in advanced modernity. Both examples can both be understood as forms of reading against the grain, or misreading. As such they resemble other phenomena in contemporary media culture, such as audiovisual mashups, which are discussed in the opening section.

This chapter elaborates the book’s argument about morality and ethics by discussing documentaries and fictional dramas about torture and the ‘War on Terror’, including Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Taxi to the Dark Side (2007), and Standard Operating Procedure (2008). It argues that Zero Dark Thirty adheres to a moral script about 9/11 and its aftermath, justifying the self-appointed forces of good going over to ‘the dark side’. By constructing such a moral universe, the film helps to normalise torture and other illicit practices, making them acceptable. Taxi to the Dark Side creates another kind of moral universe, inspiring pity for the dark side’s victims and outrage towards the policy’s architects. However, Standard Operating Procedure, though criticised for its lack of moral perspective, stands out as the most ‘ethical’ of these films, as it engages us at multiple, sensory levels and explores how moral norms are reconstructed in the ‘atrocity-producing situation’.

This chapter examines a group of documentaries that deal with the Abu Ghraib photographs. These documentaries include Standard Opening Procedure (2008), Taxi to the Dark Side (2007), and The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib (2007). The subject of these documentaries is not the desiring subject or the bizarre nature of what the photographs from Abu Ghraib reveal about human subjectivity. Instead, the documentaries work to expose the inhumanity of torture. The films also reject the Bush administration's claim that the U.S. military did not directly order those specific acts of torture at Abu Ghraib. They also prove both the ineffectual nature of torture, and George W. Bush's involvement in the decrees to torture. The films, however, avoid the question of the justifications of torture, which leads these otherwise excellent documentaries to miss the real issue at stake in torture.

This chapter provides background material to put the Moon in context and to understand how craters came to be formed, as part of the formation of the solar system. It presents a brief history of the solar system and the first observations of the Moon, and how they affected its portrayal in art and literature. The measurement of its distance and the misunderstood “dark side” are also described.

Technology is all too often seen as being inherently good, and there are powerful interests limiting the amount of attention paid to the darker side of ICTs and Internet access in particular. However, these darker aspects are crucial to understanding ICT4D, especially since they can more seriously impact the poor, both countries and people, than the rich. The following main challenges are covered in the chapter: privacy and security; the Surface Web and the Dark Web; cyber-security and resilience; negative aspects of the exploitation of Big Data and the abuse of people through social media; and the increasing dehumanization of people through the use of ICTs and the Internet of Things.

This chapter provides a critical analysis of specific rock pieces in order to determine what contributes to the success of a rock song. It aims to show the possibility of critical analysis of rock songs and to legitimize the observations made about the different components of a rock music. It analyzes several rock hits including Duncan Sheik's “Barely Breathing”, Chicago's “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”, and Pink Floyd's “Dark Side of the Moon”.

This chapter examines the double game of relentless increases in efficiency. The notion that financial speculation is endowed with a special force, which justifies its economic functions, is echoed in the tension between thrilling speculation, on the one hand, and the hard work of everyday capitalist accumulation, on the other hand, as well as in the representation of super human speculators. They are rather part and parcel of the observation lens set in place by writers of investment manuals and stock exchange histories, a lens through which the individual actors of the exchange can be seen in their relationship with entities such as the state, the economy, and the society at large. While such a lens can and does include elements such as educational fiction it does not primarily claim esthetic autonomy. Its aim is not contemplation and reflection as such, but observation as a path to action. Debates and controversies around the status of financial speculation and of speculators evolve around topics set within the boundaries of finance, not by a neutral or adversarial instance, and certainly not by a contemplative, reflexive one.

Although gift exchange is often vaunted for its socially integrative functions, it is also associated with negative effects: obligation, coercion, indebtedness, and the psychological and social oppression of the donee. Perhaps due to the refusal of an offer of hospitality in Corinth, Paul becomes embroiled in hostile relations that indicate the “dark side of the gift.” Paul can classify the same exchange differently at different times, and, in attempts to activate social responses of friendship or hostility, he can label his own labor a “gift” while labeling the same type of labor performed by others a “commodity.” The chapter shows that since the classification of exchange carries significant implications for social interaction, attempts to classify a given exchange cannot be disassociated from attempts to orchestrate sociopolitical relations and, in fact, always serve sociopolitical functions.

This chapter analyzes the 1965 feature film The Battle of Algiers, which dramatized an episode in the Algerian War during which torture was systematically used in the dismantling of an urban guerilla network operating out of the Casbah, the old city. More specifically, it explores the uncertainties and silences surrounding the filmic treatment of torture, as well as its garbled or ambiguous meanings as conveyed in The Battle of Algiers and the documentaries Standard Operating Procedure and Taxi to the Dark Side. It argues that The Battle of Algiers failed to capture the centrality of torture in the French counterinsurgency effort in Algeria, while Standard Operating Procedure minimizes the effects of torture on the Abu Ghraib detainees and does not represent the victims’ suffering or experience. Taxi to the Dark Side discloses the extent of America’s torture program, elucidates the decisions that made torture a key element in the country’s counterinsurgency program in Iraq and Afghanistan, and gives the torture victims a voice.

In 1978, when he was 31, Ed graduated from Fordham University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in social science, and he was accepted at the Fordham's Graduate School of Social Service. This chapter discusses the challenges Ed Rohs faced as he grew from an institutionalized boy from whom little was expected to success as a licensed social worker with an advanced degree, holding jobs with steadily increasing responsibility and prestige. It describes his 17 years as a volunteer strength and conditioning coach for a Division 1 NCAA basketball program in New York City and his travels around the country with the team, staying in fine hotels and taking his meals in restaurants, he slowly learned how to negotiate the tricky landscape of polite society. This chapter provides a bird's eye view of the enormous pressure Division 1 coaches are under, and their full-time responsibility for the student-athletes they train. The chapter also describes the dark side of Rohs biological family.

The carrying on of trade, both legal and illegal, between communities has been a fundamental feature of global economic relationships and an essential component of economic and social development. Modern-day trafficking is more than simply a reflection of an age old problem of illegal trade, because of the power of globalization. With Africa’s continuing integration into the global economy, the continent has becoming ever more vulnerable to the dark side of globalization that drives international trafficking. The challenge that the illicit trade in drugs and small arms brings to the continent is one far beyond the immediate impact of rising transnational criminal activity, but one that has broader implications for cross-cutting linkages to African security, stability and the future of African governance.

This concluding chapter highlights some of the most important changes that need to be made in ICT4D policies and practices if these technologies are to be used to empower poor and marginalized people and communities. These include the development of innovative pro-poor technologies, a reorientation of government policy and international agendas away from economic growth and towards the reduction of inequality, the use of effective multi-sector partnerships in support of the poorest, increased dialogue between governments and citizens with respect to security and privacy, greater attention to the creation of more resilient infrastructures, enhanced learning for all stakeholders, and a comprehensive focus on working with poor people rather than for them.