Deconstructing consciousness in contemporary hyperrality: the multiphrenic self and identity

This study is a practice-led research that visually examines how the sense of self and identity are experienced within the complexity and multiplicity of selves in a technologically saturated culture. This dissertation, “Deconstructing consciousness in contemporary hyperreality: The multiphrenic self and identity”, is the theoretical component of this research which underpins and discusses the visual works that comprise of three multimedia installations that focus on images of the fractured self, the re-imagining of faces behind facial recognition programmes, and the embodiment of space and aesthetic significance within re-appropriation of images within social media platforms. The practical component falls within multi-media art often associated with video art and installation art within contemporary art. By recognising postmodern identity theories, this study investigates the postmodern subject’s concept of self and identity formation within a world that is influenced by the constant glare of technology and viral1 media exposure. How the development and proliferation of technology in the contemporary world, shapes one’s sense of self and identity. The fragmented postmodern subject exists within this context of “viral media” that describes the endless parasitism and dominance of media, where information is perpetuated as part of representation. Due to the perpetual state of virtual re-invention of the “self” within this realm, a digital footprint of identity and traces of personal information are available to others publicly and globally. This context generates a fractured postmodern self that globally exists within a perpetual sense of the present. This research visually and theoretically reflects on the concepts of postmodern schizophrenia and the multiphrenic self, in relation to identity and how participation on social media platforms can enhance a feeling of fragmented self. To address the main argument, it is the contention of the research to deliberate that identity formation is continually and compulsively shaped and reshaped through adapting to specific social environments. The study further argues that the multitude of digital networks (and the everyday practices occurring within and between them) form a different kind of platform and space that affects identity formation.Art History, Visual Arts and Musicolog

Ten Misconceptions from the History of Analysis and Their Debunking

The widespread idea that infinitesimals were "eliminated" by the "great triumvirate" of Cantor, Dedekind, and Weierstrass is refuted by an uninterrupted chain of work on infinitesimal-enriched number systems. The elimination claim is an oversimplification created by triumvirate followers, who tend to view the history of analysis as a pre-ordained march toward the radiant future of Weierstrassian epsilontics. In the present text, we document distortions of the history of analysis stemming from the triumvirate ideology of ontological minimalism, which identified the continuum with a single number system. Such anachronistic distortions characterize the received interpretation of Stevin, Leibniz, d'Alembert, Cauchy, and others.Comment: 46 pages, 4 figures; Foundations of Science (2012). arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1108.2885 and arXiv:1110.545

The Reluctant Fundamentalist\u27s Depiction of the Postmodern

In this thesis, I examine postmodern fiction in the wake of 9/11. Specifically, I investigate initial predictions of how postmodernity would end after 9/11, Jean Baudrillard’s hyperreality, 9/11 as a semiotic-saturated event, 9/11-novels’ representations of hyperreality and postcolonial intersections with postmodern texts. These focuses are analyzed in Mohsin Hamid’s novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist. The novel chronicles the protagonist, Changez’s life before, during and after 9/11 and how his perspective on America’s capitalist-centered society and his own identity shifts in the wake of the attacks. After 9/11, Changez undergoes a demystification with America’s nostalgia-based regression and returns to Pakistan. Similar to other 9/11 novels, The Reluctant Fundamentalist utilizes allegories to display hyperreality and postmodern tropes. The novel is distinct, however, because it is told from the point of view of a Pakistani immigrant to an assumed American audience. Therefore, this novel directly confronts the grand narratives and preconceptions surrounding 9/11 and predominately Muslim countries. The postmodern tropes allow for an acute interrogation of the historicizing of 9/11 and what role fiction has in creating and re-imagining history. Published in 2007, The Reluctant Fundamentalist offers a more recent and contemporary portrayal of 9/11 fiction. The novel allows us to see how postmodern tropes have evolved and remained after 9/11. The trends of 9/11 literature and contemporary fiction generally can be understood through this text

Chuck Palahniuk and Jean Baudrillard: The terminal state of human subjectivity

Examines Chuck Palahniuk\u27s novel Invisible monsters using the theories of Jean Baudrillard as a lens through which to better understand Palahniuk\u27s commentary on the effects mass media have on human subjectivity in the terminal state

Postwar Media Manifestations and Don DeLillo

Media\u27s influence on postwar American culture is undeniable. Don DeLillo\u27s fiction is often a commentary on that influence. Hyperreality, Simulacra, Consumerism, and News Addiction are all regular themes in DeLillo\u27s novels; this paper explores all of these concepts through the lens of media theory. Special attention is given to the novels White Noise, Americana, and Mao II, as well as to the media theorists Jean Baudrillard, Walter Benjamin, and Antonio Gramsci. The paper is both a history and a critique of postwar consumer culture and the role that media plays in the construction of that culture

Nonstandard Methods in Ramsey Theory and Combinatorial Number Theory

The goal of this present manuscript is to introduce the reader to the nonstandard method and to provide an overview of its most prominent applications in Ramsey theory and combinatorial number theory.Comment: 126 pages. Comments welcom

Subjectivity and social resistance: a theoretical analysis of the Matrix Trilogy

The Matrix (1999) is a science-fiction film that successfully bridges modern cinematic action sequences with philosophical parables. It recalls the tradition of philosophical elaboration through science-fiction narratives; a tradition that has existed since the time of Plato. This study aims to bridge the divide between philosophy and psychology by using a theoretical analysis to discuss and explore the ideas of social thinkers (featured in the Matrix Trilogy) and critically analyse them alongside established psychological theories. More specifically, this study provides an in-depth and critical exploration of the ways in which the philosophical works of Jean Baudrillard and Karl Marx, and the widely used and recognised psychological perspectives on human development, cognition and learning offered by both Urie Broffenbrenner and Jean Piaget to simultaneously elucidate a model of human subjectivity and development in today's techno- consumerist society with specific attention to critical resistance. This study suggests that with the rise of the internet and modern communication media; sociocultural and political issues that Broffenbrenner conceptualised as existing in the macrosystem, now have a presence in the microsystem, and correspond to Broffenbrenner's requirements as to what constitutes a proximal process. These processes, according to Broffenbrenner, have the most longstanding effects on our development and contribute the most to our personality. This study also argues that the pre-operational stage and the process of symbolisation both of which Piaget identified are important phases in the child's life that see the accrual and development of signs and discourses. These signs and discourses then contribute to the development of our mind's cognitive structures which Piaget called schema. These structures are developed as we grow and help us make sense of the world by processing information and organising our experiences. This would mean that we perceive and interpret our world through ideologically shaped mental structures. These findings stress the importance of ideological influences and their impact on development and hearken more closely towards ideas about the presence and the effects of ideology by thinkers like Plato and Marx, as well as the dystopian futures explored in science-fiction media like the Matrix Trilogy, George Orwell's 1984 (1948) and Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World (1932), and also the options for critical social resistance explored in the narratives and heroic deeds of these books and their characters

The digital feminine

This MFA is a visual art critical investigation of digital representations, manipulations, and exploitations of feminine figures in cyberspace. The particular focus of this study is centred on the work of self-titled reality artist Signe Pierce, as well as my own practical body of work: The Digital Feminine. Case studies of Pierce’s practice include Big Sister (2016), Halo (2018), American Reflexxx (2013) and Reality Hack (2016). Through these case studies I examine the nature of identity formation online as underscored by notions of performativity as well as arguments for the use of feminine aesthetics as feminist critique, specifically through the use of the ‘Venus Flytrapping’ method. Jean Baudrillard famously theorised the hyperreal and the simulacra, claiming that human experience is a simulation of reality1. My MFA thesis addresses contemporary concerns relating to issues of reality, perception, the gaze, and identity in an increasingly virtual world. The 20th century witnessed massive changes in technology, and its subsequent commercialisation marked new territories for mass media, politics, entertainment, social life, and the art world. Avant-garde modern art movements shattered previously held standards of traditional artistic production, thus ideas surrounding the ‘art object’ and the role of artists themselves were fundamentally changed. In a postmodern world where nothing is sacred and life is experienced through the simulacra of the screen, the hyperreal takes over. I investigate how real-world socio-political issues, particularly those related to gender, transcend into the digital realm of cyberspace through discussions of Donna Harraway’s ‘cyborg feminism’ and Judith Butler’s ideas of gender performativity, as well as Erving Goffman’s ideas of everyday performativity. My final body of work for the professional art practice component of this MFA is realised in the form of an immersive installation that straddles the virtual and the real. Influenced by digital and hyperreal aesthetics (such as VapourWave), this installation also explores various expressions of femininity that an individual can express both online and in real life