This work theorizes the contemporary attraction to three-dimensional media. In doing so, it reframes ongoing debates surrounding digital three-dimensional media in order to critique the neoliberal social relations such media engender. I argue that the contemporary interest in dimensionality, especially regarding digital media, is symptomatic of a broad cultural shift, wherein millions of lives are now essentially being lived through two-dimensional, "flat" media, which have consequently generated a lack of spatial relationships and a craving or desire for "depth." This "desire for depth" has arisen in contemporary society because people are being "spread too thin" through a combination of the radical connectivity afforded by digital technology and the demand for limitless flexibility imposed by the market: a condition I call hyper-extensionality. My work examines how neoliberal capitalism necessitates the individualized, radical connectivity now experienced by millions of people, and subsequently generates our attraction to three-dimensionality in digital media. Through analyses of select, prominent forms of three-dimensional media, I show that commercial three-dimensional media largely functions to maintain the status quo by helping alleviate the feeling of "depthlessness" in the social unconscious.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USF/oai:scholarcommons.usf.edu:etd-5186 |
| Date | 01 January 2012 |
| Creators | Brecese, Justin Alan |
| Publisher | Scholar Commons |
| Source Sets | University of South Flordia |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | default |
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