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A conversation on globalisation and digital art

Globalisation is one of the most important cultural phenomena of our times and yet, one of the least understood. In popular and critical discourse there has been a struggle to articulate its human affects. The tendency to focus upon macro accounts can leave gaps in our understanding of its micro experiences.1 1 As Jonathon Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo argue there is a strong pattern of thinking about globalisation 'principally in terms of very large-scale economic, political, or cultural processes'. (See: Jonathon Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo (Eds.), The Anthropology of Globalisation: A Reader, Malden, Blackwell Publishing, 2002, p. 5.) In this thesis, I will describe globalisation as a dynamic matrix of flows. I will argue that globalisation's spatial, temporal, and kinetic re-arrangements have particular impacts upon bodies and consciousnesses, creating contingent and often unquantifiable flows. I will introduce digital art as a unique platform of articulation: a style borne of globalisation's oeuvre, and technically well-equipped to converse with and emulate its affects. By exploring digital art through an historical lens I aim to show how it continues dialogues established by earlier art forms. I will claim that digital art has the capacity to re-centre globalisation around the individual, through sensory and experiential forms that encourage subjective and affective encounters. By approaching it in this way, I will move away from universal theorems in favour of particular accounts. Through exploring a wide array of digital artworks, I will discuss how digital art can capture fleeting experiences and individual expressions. I will closely examine its unique tools of articulation to include: immersive, interactive, haptic, and responsive technologies, and analyse the theories and ideas that they converse with. Through this iterative process, I aim to explore how digital art can both facilitate and generate new articulations of globalisation, as an experiential phenomenon.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/230081
Date January 2008
CreatorsMilton-Smith, Melissa
PublisherUniversity of Western Australia. Communication Studies Discipline Group, University of Western Australia. School of Social and Cultural Studies
Source SetsAustraliasian Digital Theses Program
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
RightsCopyright Melissa Milton-Smith, http://www.itpo.uwa.edu.au/UWA-Computer-And-Software-Use-Regulations.html

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