Michael Betancourt
Biographic Data
| ID | 3848335 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Betancourt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Betancourt |
| SIGNATURE | BETANCOURT M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Savannah College of Art and Design |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5775-1890 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Digital Typoetry: An Asemic Continuation
This artist portfolio contextualizes my work with "typoems"-typographical asemic poetry exploring aphasic experience as a source of inspiration that reflects on the contingency of our interpretations.Collaged typographic fragments have a specific lineage within Concrete and Visual poetry made by graphic designers and artists engaged with printing processes.Digital design software extends and expands these earlier possibilities that were constrain…
Computer creates a cat: Sign formation, glitching, and the AImage
AI-generated images of “cats” offer novel opportunities to consider the semic role of expectations in sign formation where they act as constraints on semiosis through the potential identification of the AImage as “correct,” or as a “glitch.” Because the identification of “errors” depends on a range of technical and cultural expertise, they offer valuable insights into the interpretive process. The automated generation of media by AI separates the…
On the recognitions of asemic poetry as language
The recognition of a pattern of abstract marks as language is simultaneously obvious and undertheorized. Contemporary “asemic poetry” splits the recognition of language from its lexicality, providing an opportunity to consider this recognition directly. It reveals the necessary intervention of an “intentional function” that justifies considering markings as if they were encoded, i.e., as language. This essential moment of sign formation in writte…
The "intentional function" in still and moving photographic images
What is the role of intention in the identification of encoding that arises for images and other non-lexical objects of semiosis? This proposal of the "intentional function" resolves the syntagmatic problems posed by visual imagery: it identifies the viewer's treatment of what they encounter as if it is encoded based on formal non-signifying cues visible in the image and learned through past experience. This decision about the organization and st…
Reassembling the English Novel, 1789–1919
The absence of an exhaustive bibliography of novels published in the British Isles and Ireland during the 19th century blocks several lines of research in sociologically-inclined literary history and book history. Without a detailed account of novelistic production, it is difficult to characterize, for example, the population of individuals who pursued careers as novelists. This paper contributes to efforts to develop such an account by estimatin…
The "material function" in cinema: Resolving the paradox of the glitch
Glitches pose expressive challenges for digital motion pictures. These problematics reveal a "material function" that determines their identification and prescribes their semantics on-screen. These issues of materiality are familiar from the ideological critiques of avant-garde film in the 1970s, but have not been explored in relation to the semiotics of digital cinema. Developing an understanding of these problematics shows the complex problemat…
Visualization in Bayesian Workflow
Bayesian data analysis is about more than just computing a posterior distribution, and Bayesian visualization is about more than trace plots of Markov chains. Practical Bayesian data analysis, like all data analysis, is an iterative process of model building, inference, model checking and evaluation, and model expansion. Visualization is helpful in each of these stages of the Bayesian workflow and it is indispensable when drawing inferences from …
Asemic typography in kinetic design
Asemic typography offers an opportunity to consider the distinction between typography in its traditional role for graphic design and how the addition of motion changes its engagement and audience comprehension for motion graphics. These differences enable a consideration of the specific problematics created by chronological development on-screen as a formal differentiator between static and kinetic typography
Stan: A Probabilistic Programming Language
Stan is a probabilistic programming language for specifying statistical models. A Stan program imperatively defines a log probability function over parameters conditioned on specified data and constants. As of version 2.14.0, Stan provides full Bayesian inference for continuous-variable models through Markov chain Monte Carlo methods such as the No-U-Turn sampler, an adaptive form of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo sampling. Penalized maximum likelihood …
The Prior Can Often Only Be Understood in the Context of the Likelihood
A key sticking point of Bayesian analysis is the choice of prior distribution, and there is a vast literature on potential defaults including uniform priors, Jeffreys’ priors, reference priors, maximum entropy priors, and weakly informative priors. These methods, however, often manifest a key conceptual tension in prior modeling: a model encoding true prior information should be chosen without reference to the model of the measurement process, bu…
The calligram and the title card
The design of motion picture title sequences in 1930s Hollywood employs one of two approaches: (1) superimposed text where the background is independent of the typography, (2) the integration of the type and background imagery to produce a single, composite effect. The title design for the 1936 film
The Semiotics of the Moon as Fantasy and Destination
This essay surveys a 20-year period of the author’s studio-based research into “spatial montage” and windowing, elaborating on his use of space imagery in a symbolic system describing the critique of fantasy::reality through symbols that are still used in the contemporary world—how the mythic dimensions of interpreting the “heavens” collide and contradict contemporary scientific interpretations. “Visionary” art is the dynamic focus, with the Moon…
The Critique of Digital Capitalism: An Analysis of the Political Economy of Digital Culture and Technology
Anything that can be automated, will be. The ?magic? that digital technology has brought us ? self-driving cars, Bitcoin, high frequency trading, internet of things, social networking, mass surveillance, the 2009 housing bubble ? has not been considered ideologically. The Critique of Digital Capitalism identifies how digital technology has captured contemporary society in a reification of capitalist priorities. The theory proposed in this book is…
Critical Digital Studies: A Reader, Second Edition
A Taxonomy of Abstract Form Using Studies of Synesthesia and Hallucinations
The author proposes a taxonomy of abstract form anchored in an examination of the history and theory of synesthesia and abstract art. The foundations of this taxonomy lie in empirical psychological studies of “form-constants” found in cross-modal synesthetic visions and hallucinatory states, specifically the work of Heinrich Klüver in his examinations of mescaline and the mechanisms producing visual hallucinations. While the proposed taxonomy is …
Serial form as entertainment and interpretative framework: Probability and the ‘black box’ of past experience
This essay presents and discusses the ways that prior experience constitutes a logical black box in Umberto Eco’s discussion of serial forms in ‘Interpreting Serials’ by using the complex adaptive system model for how complexity arises and is sustained over time, as proposed by John Holland. In exploring how Holland’s model can account for some aspects of Eco’s past experience, it becomes evident that a modification of both theories to accommodat…
Year: A Study in Creating Space With Color
April 01 2005 YEAR: A Study in Creating Space With Color Michael Betancourt Michael Betancourt 410 Chester Avenue, Moorestown, NJ 08057, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected]. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Michael Betancourt 410 Chester Avenue, Moorestown, NJ 08057, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected]. Received: February 21 2004 Online ISSN: 1530-9282 Print ISSN: 0024-094X © 2005…
The "intentional function" in still and moving photographic images
What is the role of intention in the identification of encoding that arises for images and other non-lexical objects of semiosis? This proposal of the "intentional function" resolves the syntagmatic problems posed by visual imagery: it identifies the viewer's treatment of what they encounter as if it is encoded based on formal non-signifying cues visible in the image and learned through past experience. This decision about the organization and st…
The "material function" in cinema: Resolving the paradox of the glitch
Glitches pose expressive challenges for digital motion pictures. These problematics reveal a "material function" that determines their identification and prescribes their semantics on-screen. These issues of materiality are familiar from the ideological critiques of avant-garde film in the 1970s, but have not been explored in relation to the semiotics of digital cinema. Developing an understanding of these problematics shows the complex problemat…
Serial form as entertainment and interpretative framework: Probability and the ‘black box’ of past experience
This essay presents and discusses the ways that prior experience constitutes a logical black box in Umberto Eco’s discussion of serial forms in ‘Interpreting Serials’ by using the complex adaptive system model for how complexity arises and is sustained over time, as proposed by John Holland. In exploring how Holland’s model can account for some aspects of Eco’s past experience, it becomes evident that a modification of both theories to accommodat…
Year: A Study in Creating Space With Color
April 01 2005 YEAR: A Study in Creating Space With Color Michael Betancourt Michael Betancourt 410 Chester Avenue, Moorestown, NJ 08057, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected]. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Michael Betancourt 410 Chester Avenue, Moorestown, NJ 08057, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected]. Received: February 21 2004 Online ISSN: 1530-9282 Print ISSN: 0024-094X © 2005…
A Taxonomy of Abstract Form Using Studies of Synesthesia and Hallucinations
The author proposes a taxonomy of abstract form anchored in an examination of the history and theory of synesthesia and abstract art. The foundations of this taxonomy lie in empirical psychological studies of “form-constants” found in cross-modal synesthetic visions and hallucinatory states, specifically the work of Heinrich Klüver in his examinations of mescaline and the mechanisms producing visual hallucinations. While the proposed taxonomy is …
Critical Digital Studies: A Reader, Second Edition
The calligram and the title card
The design of motion picture title sequences in 1930s Hollywood employs one of two approaches: (1) superimposed text where the background is independent of the typography, (2) the integration of the type and background imagery to produce a single, composite effect. The title design for the 1936 film
The Semiotics of the Moon as Fantasy and Destination
This essay surveys a 20-year period of the author’s studio-based research into “spatial montage” and windowing, elaborating on his use of space imagery in a symbolic system describing the critique of fantasy::reality through symbols that are still used in the contemporary world—how the mythic dimensions of interpreting the “heavens” collide and contradict contemporary scientific interpretations. “Visionary” art is the dynamic focus, with the Moon…
The Critique of Digital Capitalism: An Analysis of the Political Economy of Digital Culture and Technology
Anything that can be automated, will be. The ?magic? that digital technology has brought us ? self-driving cars, Bitcoin, high frequency trading, internet of things, social networking, mass surveillance, the 2009 housing bubble ? has not been considered ideologically. The Critique of Digital Capitalism identifies how digital technology has captured contemporary society in a reification of capitalist priorities. The theory proposed in this book is…
Stan: A Probabilistic Programming Language
Stan is a probabilistic programming language for specifying statistical models. A Stan program imperatively defines a log probability function over parameters conditioned on specified data and constants. As of version 2.14.0, Stan provides full Bayesian inference for continuous-variable models through Markov chain Monte Carlo methods such as the No-U-Turn sampler, an adaptive form of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo sampling. Penalized maximum likelihood …
The Prior Can Often Only Be Understood in the Context of the Likelihood
A key sticking point of Bayesian analysis is the choice of prior distribution, and there is a vast literature on potential defaults including uniform priors, Jeffreys’ priors, reference priors, maximum entropy priors, and weakly informative priors. These methods, however, often manifest a key conceptual tension in prior modeling: a model encoding true prior information should be chosen without reference to the model of the measurement process, bu…
Visualization in Bayesian Workflow
Bayesian data analysis is about more than just computing a posterior distribution, and Bayesian visualization is about more than trace plots of Markov chains. Practical Bayesian data analysis, like all data analysis, is an iterative process of model building, inference, model checking and evaluation, and model expansion. Visualization is helpful in each of these stages of the Bayesian workflow and it is indispensable when drawing inferences from …
Asemic typography in kinetic design
Asemic typography offers an opportunity to consider the distinction between typography in its traditional role for graphic design and how the addition of motion changes its engagement and audience comprehension for motion graphics. These differences enable a consideration of the specific problematics created by chronological development on-screen as a formal differentiator between static and kinetic typography
The "material function" in cinema: Resolving the paradox of the glitch
Glitches pose expressive challenges for digital motion pictures. These problematics reveal a "material function" that determines their identification and prescribes their semantics on-screen. These issues of materiality are familiar from the ideological critiques of avant-garde film in the 1970s, but have not been explored in relation to the semiotics of digital cinema. Developing an understanding of these problematics shows the complex problemat…
Reassembling the English Novel, 1789–1919
The absence of an exhaustive bibliography of novels published in the British Isles and Ireland during the 19th century blocks several lines of research in sociologically-inclined literary history and book history. Without a detailed account of novelistic production, it is difficult to characterize, for example, the population of individuals who pursued careers as novelists. This paper contributes to efforts to develop such an account by estimatin…
The "intentional function" in still and moving photographic images
What is the role of intention in the identification of encoding that arises for images and other non-lexical objects of semiosis? This proposal of the "intentional function" resolves the syntagmatic problems posed by visual imagery: it identifies the viewer's treatment of what they encounter as if it is encoded based on formal non-signifying cues visible in the image and learned through past experience. This decision about the organization and st…
On the recognitions of asemic poetry as language
The recognition of a pattern of abstract marks as language is simultaneously obvious and undertheorized. Contemporary “asemic poetry” splits the recognition of language from its lexicality, providing an opportunity to consider this recognition directly. It reveals the necessary intervention of an “intentional function” that justifies considering markings as if they were encoded, i.e., as language. This essential moment of sign formation in writte…
Computer creates a cat: Sign formation, glitching, and the AImage
AI-generated images of “cats” offer novel opportunities to consider the semic role of expectations in sign formation where they act as constraints on semiosis through the potential identification of the AImage as “correct,” or as a “glitch.” Because the identification of “errors” depends on a range of technical and cultural expertise, they offer valuable insights into the interpretive process. The automated generation of media by AI separates the…
Digital Typoetry: An Asemic Continuation
This artist portfolio contextualizes my work with "typoems"-typographical asemic poetry exploring aphasic experience as a source of inspiration that reflects on the contingency of our interpretations.Collaged typographic fragments have a specific lineage within Concrete and Visual poetry made by graphic designers and artists engaged with printing processes.Digital design software extends and expands these earlier possibilities that were constrain…
Computer Science (12 works) · Art (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Artificial Intelligence (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Linguistics (4 works) · Literature (4 works)