Yes

This thesis investigates a cultural logic of information. In a world saturated with information, how is representation defined, and what kinds of boundaries does it consequently set up for establishing what can be known? I argue that a cultural logic of information articulates a common cultural definition for representation: information is understood as either a “true” representation of reality, or a substitute for reality itself. As a result, information comes to be conflated with knowledge. But, in contrast to calls (scholarly and otherwise) to police the boundaries of information, I argue 1) that information is exceedingly difficult to separate, in kind, from storytelling, because 2) the provision of information almost always entails scrambles for narrative representation, which 3) are always staged in the terms of genre. The function of these conclusions is the constant undermining of this cultural logic. I examine the intersection of a variety of cultural and theoretical objects, including: Fox News and “Make America Great Again”; scientific modelling of climate change; Claude Shannon’s mathematical theory of communication; Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle; YouTube “lifestyle” communities; and the documentary “The Act of Killing.” I suggest that a methodology that accounts for the imbrication of information and storytelling better accounts for the vicissitudes of, and ideological struggles over, these cultural phenomena. It does so, in particular, by engaging with the subjective experience of information, and assessing how subjects imagine their relations to information and to networks. The purpose of this argument is to intervene in conversations about the articulation of life in control societies. / Graduate / 2021-06-20

I have come to a point where I feel a need to understand more about my own work methods and my motivations. Departing from a process diary written during my master studies, I take a closer look at my own artistic process — the questions which inform my work, the questions that arise in it, and how my work is an attempt to understand those questions. Wherein lies the urgency for me to work with art in the way that I do?  This is an essay about a search, about trying to make sense of something, about not knowing. It is also an exploration of how my work in the non-verbal domain transforms my not knowing, how working with art is a tool for thinking and understanding.