This thesis elaborates on existing definitions and descriptions of simulation to develop an extended, inter-disciplinary concept of simulation that serves as an orienting model for the interpretation of culture. As cultural theory, simulation offers insights into the stabilization and propagation of cultural forms. Used descriptively, the metaphor of simulation throws into definition a cultural pattern of progressive formalization through increasingly sophisticated methods of abstraction. I find evidence of the pattern at many levels of analysis; metaphysical, social and micro-social, particularly at the level of the body. I use the speculative notion of the digital refiguring of culture to articulate this tendency towards abstraction through a parallel with the enhanced analytic and representational capacities of digital technology. I consider several actual and hypothetical ways that the computer figures in this process. I argue that the basis for cultural form is shifting away from the referential function of the body, as the abstract realm of mediated relations takes on greater importance in modern culture.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.26726 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Cecil, Malcolm Kirk. |
| Contributors | Levin, Charles (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Graduate Communications Program.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001558261, proquestno: MQ29534, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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