My Bachelor’s thesis is a comparative analysis between humans and machines in a science fiction novel (Neuromancer) and a movie (Matrix). I explored in these works how the machines used technologies to influence on the humans. I used examples of characters from the text and movie along with the references of other writers writing on the same topic to help convey my message. I explored mainly the identity and reality issues among characters. William Gibson in Neuromancer portrays that technology has become a part of human body. While in the Matrix we see how machines are taking control on humans. In my thesis I started with Neuromancer and write about identity and reality issues of characters and artificial intelligences. In the second part of the thesis I write the same with the characters of the movie Matrix but also I compared these characters with characters of Neuromancer. Some other discussions in my thesis are about hyperreality, simulation, simulacra with reference to mostly Baudrillard. Overall this thesis explores the issues of identity and reality to the characters in the works and also to the readers as well. Key Terms: Identity, Reality, Hyperreality, Simulation, Simulacra.

In September 2015, Argentinean artist Adrían Villar Rojas opened the exhibition Two suns at the Marian Goodman Gallery in New York. Featuring in the exhibition was a clay statue which resembled Michelangelo’s David albeit lying down and with some slight modifications to its pose and facial features for example. This paper aims to explore the possible link between the clay statue featured in Two suns and the David in relation to the term simulacra through a poststructuralist reading of Plato, Gilles Deleuze and Jean Baudrillard. By deconstructing the work of art and the theoretical material together both the effects and inner workings of the simulacra in Two suns as well as the constant changing meaning of symbols become mapped out.

[pt] Esta dissertação propõe uma análise do conceito de infamiliar (unheimlich) com o objetivo de encontrar suas condições de possibilidade em determinados tipos de discursos, nos quais esse sentimento ao mesmo tempo produz e é produzido por uma forma de tempo própria. Diz-se infamiliar aquele sentimento que emerge tanto no cotidiano como no contato com certas obras de ficção, como nota Freud em seu ensaio de mesmo nome (das Unheimliche), deslanchado por uma pequena distorção ou variação do familiar (isto é, daquilo que já é conhecido). O infamiliar diverge profundamente do familiar, ainda que mantendo com este último uma semelhança superficial, de aparência. Esta é sua principal característica, a saber, seu caráter de simulacro, de falsa cópia do familiar. Interessamo-nos, portanto, por entender melhor o tipo de discurso que se estrutura com base em um ou mais simulacros, notadamente o discurso sofista. O infamiliar também se caracteriza, na ficção, por vir frequentemente acompanhado de contradições cronológicas e por sugerir, portanto, uma distorção no tempo e no espaço das histórias. Veremos, enfim, como o discurso que opera por simulacros constrói uma forma do tempo específica e própria. Nosso objetivo é borrar os limites do que denominamos infamiliar, mostrando que ele nasce de particularidades da própria linguagem que estão presentes em todo tipo de discurso, que ele não nos é tão estrangeiro assim e nem tão particular a um grupo específico de gêneros literários. / [en] This dissertation proposes an analysis of the concept of uncanny (from the German unheimlich; or infamiliar, the negation of familiarity) with a focus on finding its conditions of possibility in certain types of discourses in which this feeling both produces and is produced by a distinct form of time. The infamiliar is said to be a feeling which emerges both in daily life and in contact with certain works of fiction (as Freud notes in his essay of the same name, das Unheimliche), produced by a small distortion or variation of the familiar (that is, of that which is already known). It differs profoundly from the familiar all the while maintaining with the latter a superficial resemblance, that is, a similarity in appearance. This is its main characteristic, namely, being a simulacrum, or false copy, of the familiar. What follows is a deeper analysis of the types of discourse that are structured around simulacra, notably the sophist discourse. The uncanny is also characterized, in fiction, by often accompanying chronological contradictions which suggest a distortion of space and time in such stories. Therefore, we will also see how the type of discourse that operates through simulacra constructs a distinct form of time. Our goal is to blur the limits of the uncanny, showing that it is a product of certain particularities of language that are present in all types of discourses and so that it is neither very foreign to us nor restricted to a specific group of literary genres.

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Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-10T11:07:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MARIO CARLOS CORTEZ NOGUEIRA.pdf: 272388 bytes, checksum: ae968d9ef481a5726630cf10b9f5faac (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-05-18 / This study aims to conduct a search through a critical approach of the artwork Ralfo Confessions, (a fictional autobiography) of the Brazilian writer Sérgio Sant Anna, first published in 1975, considered in the context of Brazilian literature contemporary, as a memory book which features a multiplicity of writing faces itself such as: Imaginary Autobiography, memory, daily and epistle (letter). To develop this study, we used the aesthetic concepts and phenomenological on various theories on the subject, focusing on phenomenology and hermeneutics, on the interpretation of a life in the work of contemporary art. Therefore, were selected authors of works who have developed and still develop researches that underlie the subject studied in order to ground theoretically every study. Among them are: HAMBURGER (1975), FOUCAULT (1985 - 2006), BAUDRILLARD (1991), WOLFGANG ISER (2002), BARTHES (2004), CAMPOS (2004), ROBERTS (2007), LEJEUNE (2008), BAKHTIN (2010 - 2013), PAREYSON (1993), among others, which undoubtedly will contribute significantly to the understanding and critical analysis of this study. This study belongs to the field of Literary Theory, which proposes a new way of looking at the memory speech and simulation in the context of contemporary Brazilian literature. / O presente estudo tem como objetivo realizar uma pesquisa por meio de uma abordagem crítica da obra de arte Confissões de Ralfo, (uma autobiografia imaginária) do escritor brasileiro Sérgio Sant Anna, publicada pela primeira vez em 1975, considerada, no contexto da literatura brasileira contemporânea, como um livro de memórias, o qual apresenta uma multiplicidade de faces da escrita de si tais como: Autobiografia imaginária, memória, diário e epistola (carta). Para o desenvolvimento deste estudo, recorreu-se às concepções de estética e fenomenológica em diversas teorias sobre o tema, focando na fenomenologia e hermenêutica, sobre a interpretação de uma existência na obra de arte contemporânea. Assim sendo, foram selecionadas obras de autores que desenvolveram e que ainda desenvolvem pesquisas que perpassam a temática estudada, a fim de embasar, teoricamente, todo estudo. Entre eles estão: HAMBURGER (1975), FOUCAULT (1985 2006), BAUDRILLARD (1991), WOLFGANG ISER (2002), BARTHES (2004), CAMPOS (2004), RODRIGUES (2007), LEJEUNE (2008), BAKHTIN (2010 - 2013), PAREYSON (1993), entre outros, que, sem dúvida, contribuíram, significativamente, para a compreensão e análise crítica deste estudo. Tal estudo se insere no campo da Teoria Literária, a qual propõe um novo modo de olhar para o discurso da memória e do fingimento no contexto da literatura brasileira contemporânea.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:11:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Regilene Aparecida Sarzi Ribeiro.pdf: 13975478 bytes, checksum: b49c912ef66682dffe057a1cd25a836e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-05-14 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The theme of this research is to build simulations of the fragmented body and its role as an operator of the meaning and interaction of the individual in the contemporary. The research objectives are: to analyze the role of the organization figurative and plastic, the thematization of the body, the figuration of the whole and the parts that link to different treatments of the subject and intervene in the narrative and discursive interactions, study of social meaning and visibility through the interactional relations arranged by the use of expressive audiovisual system, the description of the procedures enunciative, the apprehension of the individuals in interaction and processing a esthesic sense of body self and other. The methodological basis of the research is based on Discursive Semiotics of Algirdas Julien Greimas and his associates, in the Semiotics of Plastic Jean-Marie Floch, in the field of social interactions formalized by Eric Landowski Sociossemiótica and research in the semiotic Brazilian Ana Claudia de Oliveira on the expression sensitive to global enunciation of concreteness. The research corpus consists of four Brazilian vídeoartes produced between the years 1975 and 2002. The actors of utterances installed in the works prepared for analysis are artists belonging to the first and current generation of Brazilian vídeo, as Leticia Parente, a pioneer in the record of performing actions in the 1970s, and Nina Galanternick, Danillo Barata and Lia Chaia, recognized for experimentation and research of vídeo language. The vídeos have analyzed points in common, like the fact that the body of the creator as the enunciator and surfactant statement and closeness between some semantic categories, but differ in aesthetic treatment, plastic and audiovisual syncretism. Research shows the fragmented body as an operator in the sense vídeoartes and vídeo as a semiotic fact that it makes in the act, which gives you the power to capture in close proximity to the body effect and its enunciation of significant seizures of meaning. Of semiotic analysis comes to the operationalization of aesthesia, procedures and metonymic description of the effects of meaning generated in the interaction between the discursive body language, gestures and kinetic and audiovisual language. The study contributes to the area of communication, in that it presents original research, detailed and elaborate procedure of mediation between the metonymic, the part for the whole, interactive media and practices that expand the topic and offer referrals relevant to future studies on the convergence between art and media, art and communication / O tema desta pesquisa é a construção de simulacros do corpo fragmentado e sua atuação como um operador do sentido e interação do sujeito no contemporâneo. Os objetivos da pesquisa são: análise do papel da organização figurativa e plástica, da tematização do corpo, da figuratividade do todo e das partes que apontam para distintos tratamentos do sujeito e intervêm nas interações narrativas e discursivas; estudo dos regimes de sentido e visibilidade por meio das relações interacionais dispostas pelo uso do sistema expressivo audiovisual, da descrição dos procedimentos enunciativos, da apreensão dos sujeitos em interação e do processamento estésico do sentido do corpo do si mesmo e do outro. A base metodológica da pesquisa é pautada na Semiótica Discursiva de Algirdas Julien Greimas e seus colaboradores; na Semiótica Plástica de Jean-Marie Floch; no campo das interações sociais formalizadas por Eric Landowski na Sociossemiótica e nas pesquisas da semioticista brasileira Ana Claudia de Oliveira sobre a expressão sensível como concretude da enunciação global. O corpus da pesquisa é constituído por quatro vídeoartes brasileiras, produzidas entre os anos de 1975 e 2002. Os atores das enunciações instalados nas obras recortadas para análise são artistas pertencentes à primeira e à atual geração do vídeo brasileiro, como Letícia Parente, pioneira no registro de ações performáticas na década de 1970, e Nina Galanternick, Danillo Barata e Lia Chaia, reconhecidos pela experimentação e investigação da linguagem vídeográfica. Os vídeos analisados possuem pontos em comum, como o fato de ter o corpo do criador como enunciador e actante do enunciado e a proximidade entre algumas categorias semânticas, mas se distinguem no tratamento estético, plástico e sincrético do audiovisual. A investigação mostra o corpo fragmentado como um operador de sentido nas vídeoartes e o vídeo como um fato semiótico que se perfaz em ato, o que lhe dá competência para captar em proximidade íntima o fazer sentido corpóreo e sua enunciação de apreensões significantes da significação. Da análise semiótica provém à operacionalização da estesia, dos procedimentos metonímicos e a descrição dos efeitos de sentido gerados na interação discursiva entre as linguagens corporais, gestual e cinética e a linguagem audiovisual. O estudo contribui para a área de Comunicação, na medida em que apresenta uma investigação original, minuciosa e elaborada das mediações entre o procedimento metonímico, a parte pelo todo, e as práticas interativas midiáticas, que ampliam o tema e oferecem encaminhamentos relevantes para estudos futuros sobre a convergência entre a arte e a mídia, a arte e a comunicação

This paper examines how Gilles Deleuze critically transforms the theory of thought from representation to production, by way of finding thought’s genetic conditions, in his synthesis of time and ideal synthesis in Différence et répétition. I focus on Deleuze’s critique of subject, time, and identity, and on how he tries to establish a purely positive synthesis capable of producing the absolutely new. Lastly, I discuss Deleuze’s own image of thought that rises from his critique, as simulacrum.

This thesis offers a reading of GQ South Africa 2000, the first glossy men’s magazine to be launched in South Africa (in 2000). It traces the possible iconographical genealogy of glossy men’s magazines to canonical erotic artworks and examines the aesthetic conventions used by GQ to elevate its contents through an implied association with art. This thesis, furthermore, investigates the commonalities between GQ, a ‘mainstream’ publication, and ‘pornography’ (as defined by the United States Civil Rights Ordinance 1985). In this way, the fluid impermanence of ‘art’, ‘pornography’ and ‘popular culture’ as typologies is highlighted. The new taxonomy of ‘gentlemen’s pornography’ is introduced in order to counter the notion that material that has the gloss of ‘high culture’ and is deemed socially acceptable, cannot be pornographic. This thesis submits that a critical reading of glossy men’s magazines from an interdisciplinary perspective is imperative in order to reveal their ideological assumptions. The ideological position that informs this study is the radical feminist belief that pornography objectifies and subordinates women and is, therefore, harmful. The thesis is simultaneously grounded in the theoretical methodologies of visual culture and art history, and as such assumes the intonation of these disciplines. From a Postmodern point-of-view, popular visual culture not only wields power in terms of generalising (capitalist and sexist) western paradigms, but is also skilful at masking its significant influence in doing so. For this reason, this dissertation endeavours to raise a critical dialogue concerning the ideological ‘message’ of glossy men’s magazines. The sometimes antithetical nature of discourse critically centered on gender representation in visual culture may be attributed to the pervasiveness of familiar (and therefore seemingly harmless) female objectification in the popular media. This thesis examines the iconography of gendered stereotypes against the erotic/pornographic, high culture/low culture object/subject binaries, and, furthermore, situates these types in the wider dialectic of ‘obscene’ (off-scene) versus ‘acceptable’ culture. The glossy men’s magazines that form the interest of this study are a trade situated in the alliance of social elitism and representational control over the female body, and, thus, this thesis marks the point of intersection between consumer culture and the politics of display. / Dissertation (MA (Visual Arts))--University of Pretoria, 2003. / Visual Arts / unrestricted

This study examines the manifestation of New Urbanism in the South African environment and applies the themes, characteristics and principles of New Urbanism to the landscape of Melrose Arch in Johannesburg. This precinct has been developed according to New Urban principles, and it is the aim of the author to assess whether these principles have been applied successfully, keeping in mind that since New Urbanism is an American design movement, some of its principles may be impractical to apply in a South African environment. In order to conceptualise the environment in which the analysis takes place, the author sketches a background of the origin and history of Johannesburg, including the development of the city centre and rise of the suburbs. Trends such as decentralisation and gentrification are also recognised and examined. A correlation is drawn between the Johannesburg of a few decades ago and the contemporary city to see how events and tendencies created the city of today. The current initiatives that are being undertaken to reinvent the CBD and other areas of the city are considered as well, in order to provide a context for Melrose Arch. The author also briefly examines the origin and history of leisure landscapes such as arcades, world fairs and expositions, shopping malls and themed landscapes. The purpose is not to give exact timelines and histories of these phenomena, but rather to provide a historic foundation to work from in order to sketch the context wherein developments such as Melrose Arch can be situated. The author examines the predecessors of and influences on New Urbanism in an attempt to understand this movement. Starting with the Classical Reformers and the concept of the Ideal City, a common theme runs through several other development theories, such as Garden Cities, Pedestrian Cities, as well as the more recent Edge Cities. The influence of Sprawl on cities is noted, and measures to reduce the occurrence of sprawling land by implementing solutions that are connected to New Urbanism are discussed. The author discusses the inception of New Urbanism, taking into account all the previous discussed development theories that influenced it in one way or another. Additionally, some variations on New Urbanism, such as Traditional Neighbourhood development (TND) and the Pedestrian Pocket (PP) are discussed. New Urbanism is thus placed in a contemporary context by regarding its history and influences. The application to Melrose Arch includes a brief history of this landscape, as well as its architecture and the articulation of space within the precinct. Some themes evident in Melrose Arch are discussed; many of these are based on popular myths and ideologies and how they are represented in this particular space. Issues such as Security and control, Class and status, Consumption and Utopianism are discussed and applied to Melrose Arch. Finally, the principles and characteristics of New Urbanism are applied to Melrose Arch in order to assess how successful the implementation of New Urbanism is in this precinct. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Visual Arts / MA / unrestricted

The purpose of this essay is to analyze award-winning author Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 through the lens of postmodernism. The focus will be on identifying symbols and signs of the hyperreal when it comes to freedom of speech, censorship, and technology through Jean Baudrillard’s orders of simulacra from his book Simulacra and Simulation. The images of Ray Bradbury’s dystopian society in Fahrenheit 451 are analyzed, as well as the main characters and their relationship to technology, books, censorship, and freedom of speech. This essay also argues that the hyperreal is relevant today and has been throughout history if knowledge is suppressed or controlled by society as presented in Fahrenheit 451.