Transforming Images Contemporary social and cultural life is increasingly organized around a logic of self- transformation, where changing the body is seen as key. Transforming Images examines how the future functions within this transformative logic to indicate the potential of a materially better time. The book explores the crucial role that images have in organizing an imperative of transformation and in making possible, or not, the materialization of a better future. Coleman asks the questions: which futures are appealing and to whom? How do images tap into and reproduce wider social and cultural processes of inequality? Drawing on the recent ‘turns’ in social and cultural theory to affect and emotion and to understanding life in terms of vitality, intensity and ‘liveness’, the book develops a framework for understanding images as felt and lived out. Analy sing different screens across popular culture – the screens of shopping, makeover television programmes, online dieting plans and government health campaigns – it traces how images of self-t ransformation bring the future into the present and affectively ‘draw in’ some bodies more than others. Transforming Images will be of interest to students and scholars working in sociology, media studies, cultural studies and gender studies. Rebecca Coleman is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Lancaster University. Her research is concerned with theoretical and empirical explorations of the relations between bodies and images, with a particular focus on temporal- ity. Publications include The Becoming of Bodies: Girls, Images, Experience (2009, Manchester University Press). International library of sociology Founded by Karl Mannheim Editor: John Urry Lancaster University Recent publications in this series include: Risk and Technological Culture Brands Towards a sociology of virulence Logos of the global economy Joost Van Loon Celia Lury Reconnecting Culture, Technology The Culture of Exception and Nature Sociology facing the camp Mike Michael Bülent Diken and Carsten Bagge Laustsen Advertising Myths The strange half lives of images and Visual Worlds commodities John Hall, Blake Stimson and Anne M. Cronin Lisa Tamiris Becker Adorno on Popular Culture Time, Innovation and Mobilities Robert R. Witkin Travel in technological cultures Peter Frank Peters Consuming the Caribbean From arkwarks to zombies Complexity and Social Movements Mimi Sheller Multitudes acting at the edge of chaos Between Sex and Power Ian Welsh and Graeme Chesters Family in the world, 1900–2000 Goran Therborn Qualitative Complexity States of Knowledge Ecology, cognitive processes and the The co- production of social science re- emergence of structures in and social order post- humanist social theory Sheila Jasanoff Chris Jenks and John Smith After Method Theories of the Information Society, Mess in social science research 3rd Edition John Law Frank Webster Crime and Punishment in Aeromobilities Contemporary Culture Theory and method Claire Grant Saulo Cwerner, Sven Kesselring and John Urry Mediating Nature Nils Lindahl Elliot Social Transationalism Steffen Mau Haunting the Knowledge Economy Jane Kenway, Elizabeth Bullen, Towards Relational Sociology Johannah Fahey and Simon Robb Nick Crossley Global Nomads Mobile Lives Techno and new age as transnational Anthony Elliott and John Urry countercultures in Ibiza and Goa Anthony D’Andrea Stillness in a Mobile World David Bissell and Gillian Fuller The Cinematic Tourist Explorations in globalization, culture Unintended Outcomes of Social and resistance Movements Rodanthi Tzanelli The 1989 Chinese student movement Fang Deng Non- Representational Theory Space, politics, affect Revolt, Revolution, Critique Nigel Thrift The paradox of society Bulent Diken Urban Fears and Global Terrors Citizenship, multicultures and Travel Connections belongings after 7/7 Tourism, technology and togetherness Victor J. Seidler in a mobile world Sociology through the Projector Jennie Germann- Molz Bülent Diken and Mobility, Space and Culture Carsten Bagge Laustsen Peter Merriman Multicultural Horizons Diversity and the limits of the civil China nation The cultural logic of contemporary Anne- Marie Fortier capitalism Lash Scott, Keith Michael, Sound Moves Arnoldi Jakob and Rooker Tyler IPod culture and urban experience Michael Bull Staging Mobilities Ole B. Jensen Jean Baudrillard Fatal theories Transforming Images David B. Clarke, Marcus A. Doel, Screens, affect, futures William Merrin and Richard G. Smith Rebecca Coleman Forthcoming in the series: China Constructing Capitalism Staging Mobilities Economic life and urban change Ole B. Jensen Lash Scott, Keith Michael, Arnoldi Jakob and Rooker Tyler Transforming Images Screens, affect, futures Rebecca Coleman First published 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2013 Rebecca Coleman The right of Rebecca Coleman to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Coleman, Rebecca. Transforming images : screens, affect, futures / Rebecca Coleman. p. cm. – (International library of sociology) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Self-perception. 2. Representation (Philosophy) I. Title. BF697.5.S43.C65 2013 302'.1–dc23 2012022433 ISBN: 978-0-415-67884-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-09366-5 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear Contents List of figures viii Acknowledgements ix Introduction: transformation, potential, futures 1 1 Screening affect: images, representational thinking and the actualization of the virtual 29 2 Bringing the image to life: interactive mirrors and intensive experience 47 3 Becoming different: makeover television, proximity and immediacy 72 4 Immanent measure: interaction, attractors and the multiple temporalities of online dieting 93 5 Pre- empting the future: obesity, prediction and Change4Life 113 Conclusion: transforming images – sociology, the future and the virtual 133 Notes 147 References 160 Index 169 Figures 2.1 Daniel Rozin (1999) Wooden Mirror, Israel Museum 52 2.2 Interactive mirror in Prada store, Manhattan 54 5.1a–b Images from the Change4Life What’s It All About? television advert 118 Acknowledgements There have been numerous people who have, in different ways, been involved in the research and writing of this book, and in shaping the ideas that it explores. Thanks to Debra Ferreday, Anne Cronin and Anne- Marie Fortier for discussing the initial ideas for the book and encouraging me to submit a proposal for it, John Urry for responding so quickly and positively to it, and the anonymous reviewer of the proposal. Drafts of various papers, articles and chapters that make up this book have been read by Anne Cronin, Carolyn Pedwell, Liz Oakley- Brown, Anne- Marie Fortier, Debra Ferreday and Monica Moreno Figueroa and I would like to thank them all for their thoughtful, insightful and generous suggestions. Matt Falla initially got me interested in interactive mirrors (the focus of Chapter 2), Carla Banks has shared a number of different examples of them with me, and conversations with Hettie Malcomson helped me with the Conclusion; thanks to all of them. Thanks too to the other people who have influenced the work for the book or who have offered encouragement, perhaps in ways that they don’t recog- nize: Jen Tarr, Jessica Ringrose, Imogen Robertson, Elaine Swan and, more gen- erally, my colleagues in the Sociology Department at Lancaster. The ideas for the book were influenced by two series of events: Lancaster University’s Institute for Advanced Studies Annual Research Programme on Experimentality (2009–2010) and the ESRC Seminar Series on Researching Affect and Affective Communication (2009–2011), and I would like to thank Bron Szerszynski and Valerie Walkerdine respectively for inviting me to participate in them. Thanks to those at Routledge, and especially Gerhard Boomgaarden, Jennifer Dodd and Emily Briggs for responding to my queries and requests so quickly and good- naturedly. I would also like to thank those who kindly granted permission for me to reproduce their images: Daniel Rozin (Figure 2.1), IDEO (Figure 2.2) and Department of Health (Figures 5.1a and 5.1b). Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permission to reprint material in this book. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions of this book. A version of Chapter 4 has previously been published as (2010) ‘Dieting temporalities: interaction, agency and the measure of online weight watching’