[pt] O tema amplo deste trabalho é a hegemonia tecnológica contemporânea, em seus aspectos ontológicos e sociológicos. Na impossibilidade de cobrir todo o campo fenomênico dessa hegemonia, elegemos as tecnologias digitais e o paradigma informacional que lhe corresponde como nossos objetos de estudo imediato e exemplar. A contemporaneidade e a velocidade das transformações que concernem a esses objetos colocam, por sua vez, problemas diretos ao desenvolvimento de um trabalho mais canônico ou sistemático. A escolha foi trabalhar com autores de referência, diversos entre si, como Jean Baudrillard, William Gibson e Pierre Lévy. Foi elaborado um diálogo tendo como base alguns conceitos dos autores citados, por exemplo: simulação (Baudrillard), ciberespaço (Gibson) e, numa chave mais crítica, virtualidade (Lévy). Investigamos como essas tecnologias do virtual organizam, de forma mais ou menos insidiosa, a realidade e a vida através desse paradigma informático. Dado o abalo dos referenciais de sentido protagonizados por essa hegemonia tecnológica, discutimos, em suma, os caminhos ainda trilháveis nessa atmosfera de positivação do encantamento e da ilusão, ou seja, o que nos resta do mundo e da nossa capacidade de pensá-lo. / [en] This study has the contemporary technological hegemony as a theme, both in it s ontological and sociological aspects. Since it s impossible to cover the phenomenological field of this hegemony as a whole, we chose digital technologies and it s informational paradigm as our immediate and exemplary subject of estudy. Contemporaneity and the fast transformations concerned to these subjects lead to problems regarding the development of a more orthodox or systematic study. To overcome such obstacle, the choice of working with referenced and diversified authors, as Jean Baudrillard, William Gibson and Pierre Lévy, was made. A dialogue between these authors was elaborated, using some of their concepts as a foundation, such as: simulation (Baudrillard), cyberspace (Gibson) and, in a more critical approach, virtuality (Lévy). The way these virtual technologies organize reality and life through an informational paradigm, in a somewhat insidious way, was investigated. Given the downfall of the sense references protagonized by this technological hegemony, we discussed, in short, the possible paths to follow under this atmosphere of enchantment s and illusion s positivation, that is, what is left of the world and of our capacity of thinking it.

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The genre affiliation is a postmodern study: Virtual Reality (VR) becomes a comprehensive concept, in the face of modernism's illusion, when rhetoric validates all discourses. All is VR. The study is in three sections with an overall introduction and conclusion: the first section introduces VR in its postmodern setting, the second section establishes the postmodern timeless/spaceless paradigm of HyperReality in which all Hermeneutics are being done from, the last section draws the paradigm into the Creatio Ex Nihilio discourse of the Scriptures. The proposed theological model is an intratextual theological model, however when YAHWEH precedes language then all discourses become intratextually part of the Biblical discourse. Human creativity is a metaphorical journey; the Fall was the outset of two languages, one in the presence of YAHWEH, while the other one void of this presence led to a nihilistic abstract constellation. Sin in VR is the unbiblical appropriation of this constellation. / Thesis (M.Th.)

This dissertation examines two films directed by Quentin Tarantino, whom I have situated as a postmodern film director, within the theoretical context of the philosophies of two postmodern philosophers: Jean Baudrillard and Jean-François Lyotard. I argue that the major institutions of society, such as the family and religion, are viewed as grand narratives, in Lyotard’s sense of the term, which Tarantino repeatedly subverts. Overlapping with this intersection of Lyotard’s philosophy in Tarantino’s films is the Baudrillardian loss of the real, which manifests as hyperreality in many scenes. I suggest that Tarantino makes a conscious effort to create such hyperreality with the creation of playful signifiers in his films. I examine selected scenes to find Baudrillard’s “successive phases of the image” (Baudrillard 2010:6) that lead to the creation of a simulacrum. The compelling intersections between the creation of Baudrillardian simulacra and the subversion of Lyotard’s grand narratives are explored within selected scenes which are deconstructed by means of film narratology, semiotic analysis and narrative analysis. The combination of the various methods of media research in this thesis enables what Jane Stokes calls “a more textured understanding” (2008:27) of the films under discussion. A close reading from a semiotic point of view facilitates a deconstruction of some obscure elements, such as the embedded meaning in lyrics and dialogue or the messages implicit in the mise en scène. / English Studies / M. A.

Text in English / This study offers a close look at Andrew Niccol’s (b 1964) satirical film S1mOne from a biocultural perspective emphasising the technological simulation of a Hollywood celebrity and the farce ensuing from her creation. The film is based on Niccol’s assumption that the hypertrophied culture into which he places his cultural object will be one in which human traits of sociality will be well advanced and the highly demanding genre of satire will be entertaining, persuasive, and on occasion punitive in its ridicule of Hollywood. The study makes a contribution to the idea that a cultural object/text operates as a rapid mechanism for propagating cognition — it shows how Niccol has adapted to less than optimal conditions in his world of Hollywood — in this case he parodies the role of the director of Hollywood films in the figure of Taransky. Cognition is understood as that series of mental processes which include attention, memory, learning (from mimicry as well as other forms), problem solving, ratiocination, and making decisions. Niccol relies on his audience's embodied capacities and skills of recognition, thinking, feeling, remembering, and accounting for his message to be understood. Niccol’s technical skill in editing his narrative to emphasise the satire of the narrative of Taransky and Simone is a critical part of the film’s success. Interpersonal and social propagation of cognition is achieved through reference to other cultural artefacts recalling a variety of similar ideas used in film and other visual creations. The cultural significance of the simulacrum, Simone, is that she is a vehicle for and a form of socially propagated cognition. The powerful imagistic impression of film helps to structure internalised cognitive artefacts in the viewers who are expected to reflect on their habits of viewing and thinking. When a film, artwork, poem or novel is analysed, then such a cultural object becomes a vehicle of and for propagating cognition. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Art History)

<p>Drawing from the theoretical foundations of the “critical theory” of the Frankfurt School and the media ethnographic “cultural studies” approach of the british Birmingham School, this study attempts to sketch out a media theoretical overview of the contemporary state of media culture. Using the term convergence culture as the foundation, this study offers a theoretical background to the two contemporary streams that are the significant and distinct tendencies of convergence culture: intermedial convergence, its contemporary state and historical tendencies that can be traced back using the past media theoretical approach of the Frankfurt School, and cultural convergence, its contemporary state and historical tendencies, which lineage in a media theoretical context can be traced back to the british ethographic “cultural studies” field. Using contemporary drama serials to identify and pinpoint these two stream, this study shows how intermedial convergence expresses itself today through media conglomeration in terms of branding, product placement and marketing as the result of the “completed” convergence between screen culture and popular music as the current defining state of commodity culture. Using the contemporary british drama serial Doctor Who I examine the processes of meaning making among members of the television series fan culture on the popular video content page youtube.com as expressions of cultural convergence.</p><p>This study argues how the skills and talents developed in the interaction with popular culture and in a process of interaction between fans and participants (collective intelligence and participatory culture), will have an impact on the institutionalized knowledge “from above” and in a collective process will seep over to other fields of expertise. The study also argues, as a consequence of convergence culture, that in the contemporary state of online practices, social networking and in our interactions with digital media content, a mandatory “presence” has been created where we today are defined more through our online selves and these practices, than the ones that used to define us in our “physical” lives: “The medium is no longer just the message, we are living in a state where there is only messages”.</p>

Drawing from the theoretical foundations of the “critical theory” of the Frankfurt School and the media ethnographic “cultural studies” approach of the british Birmingham School, this study attempts to sketch out a media theoretical overview of the contemporary state of media culture. Using the term convergence culture as the foundation, this study offers a theoretical background to the two contemporary streams that are the significant and distinct tendencies of convergence culture: intermedial convergence, its contemporary state and historical tendencies that can be traced back using the past media theoretical approach of the Frankfurt School, and cultural convergence, its contemporary state and historical tendencies, which lineage in a media theoretical context can be traced back to the british ethographic “cultural studies” field. Using contemporary drama serials to identify and pinpoint these two stream, this study shows how intermedial convergence expresses itself today through media conglomeration in terms of branding, product placement and marketing as the result of the “completed” convergence between screen culture and popular music as the current defining state of commodity culture. Using the contemporary british drama serial Doctor Who I examine the processes of meaning making among members of the television series fan culture on the popular video content page youtube.com as expressions of cultural convergence. This study argues how the skills and talents developed in the interaction with popular culture and in a process of interaction between fans and participants (collective intelligence and participatory culture), will have an impact on the institutionalized knowledge “from above” and in a collective process will seep over to other fields of expertise. The study also argues, as a consequence of convergence culture, that in the contemporary state of online practices, social networking and in our interactions with digital media content, a mandatory “presence” has been created where we today are defined more through our online selves and these practices, than the ones that used to define us in our “physical” lives: “The medium is no longer just the message, we are living in a state where there is only messages”.

Through the broader contextualization of ethnographic fieldwork in Havana’s newly reformed housing market, this study theorizes the Cuban late socialist condition through a lens of utopian ideological conflict. A popular narrative of free market utopia has emerged in the face of the state’s recalcitrant ideology of state socialism. The popular narrative is reproduced through growth in the informal economy, while the socialist utopian narrative is maintained by the ubiquity of its bureaucratic apparatus. Inspired by postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation (1994), this thesis theorizes the Cuban state narrative as an ideological simulation, supported only through its strongest simulacrum – the government bureaucracy. Previous work on Cuba has cited the importance of access to government-purchased goods to fuel the informal economy and individual wealth accumulation. This study highlights the reproduction of a narrative of free market utopia in the desire for access to transactions as intermediaries, particularly as the deals increase in hard currency value. The passage of Decreto-Ley Number 288, which authorized the buying and selling of homes has served to rapidly capitalize the market and encourage further development of an informal network of brokers. Greater economic hybridization in the housing sector, among others, is gradually eroding the totalizing nature of the state’s socialist utopia. / text

Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 104-110).

Thesis (MA (English Studies))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This project seeks to analyze the representation of identities in Shiva Naipaul's travel narrative North of South: An African Journey (1978) as encoded in the binaries of primitive / traditional; civilized / modern; settler / native; civic / tribal and neo-colonial / liberated. By analyzing this select series of identities, this project aims to explore the fractured nature of identity as constructed in the post-colony. It will argue that the identities are rendered unstable by the ungrounded nature of the post-colonial space in which they are located. Naipaul concludes his travel narrative by qualifying the postcolonial situation as an abortion of Western civilization in the trope of Conrad's Kurtz. Naipaul implies that any identity in Africa is a simulacrum, a phantom double, a copy of something that was not there to begin with. He attempts to articulate the diverse cultures that he encounters as though he were apart from them without recognizing that he is essentially and inextricably a part of the various cultural articulations themselves. It is easy to criticize Naipaul, therefore, as a non-starter. With the advantages of hindsight, however, it is possible for the contemporary reader to recognize these instabilities as evidence of the post-modern phenomenon in which reality is not an absolute. As a modernist writer, Naipaul's efforts to understand these instabilities of identity as an articulation of culture are circumvented by a Sisyphean struggle wherein he attempts to establish a sense of ontological alterity in the narrative yet implicates himself, as well as his invocation of archival literature and hence his ultimate position of disillusionment, hopelessness and doom. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie projek poog om die verteenwoordiging van identiteite in Shiva Naipaul se reisverhaal, North of South: An African Journey (1978), gekodeerd met die binere van die primitiewe / tradisionele ; beskaafde / moderne; setlaars / inheemse; staats / etniese; en neo-kolonialisme / vryheid, te analiseer. Deur die analise van die gekose reeks identiteite, neig die studie om die gebroke aard van identiteit in In post-koloniale omgewing te ondersoek, en te redeneer dat die identiteite bemoeilik word deur die ongegronde natuur van die postkoloniale ruimte waarin hulle voorkom. Naipaul omvat North of South om die post-kolonialistiese situasie te kwalifiseer as In aborsie van die Westerse beskawing in die metafoor van Conrad se Kurtz. Naipaul impliseer dat enige identiteit in Afrika In simulacrum is, In spookbeeld, 'n kopie van iets wat nooit was nie. Hy poog om die menigte kulture wat hy ondervind te omskryf asof hy van hulle verwyder is, sonder om te besef dat hy volledig deel uitmaak van die geleding van hierdie kulture, en dit is daarvolgens maklik om Naipaul as 'n mislukking te kritiseer. Met die duidelikheid van In moderne leser se terugblik is dit wei moontlik om hierdie onkonsekwenthede as bewyse te sien van die post-modernistiese verskynsel waarin realiteit nie In absoluut is nie. As In modernistiese skrywer is Naipaul se bemoeienis om hierdie onbestendigheid van identiteit as 'n omskrywing van kultuur te verstaan belemmer deur 'n Sisyphiesestryd waarin hy poog om In sin van die andersheid van die aard van die werklikheid in die storielyn te vestig, maar tog impliseer hy homself asook sy gebruik van argiefmateriaal, en vandaar sy uiteindelike posisie van ontnugtering, hopeloosheid en verwoesting.