Alan N. Shapiro, Technologist and Futurist

Blog and text archive about media theory, science fiction theory, future design, social choreography, Computer Science 2.0, new media art, robots and androids, Star Trek, The Prisoner, Jean Baudrillard, Albert Camus, Michel Foucault, and Marshall McLuhan

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Radical skepticism and the logic of Shakespeare’s artistry, by Robert Schneider

July 31st, 2010 in Category: English Literature

Robert Schneider is the author of a book-length reinterpretation of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" called "Shylock, The Roman" (Pulpless.com, 2001). I find this book to be the basis for investigating the relationship between Shakespeare and Star Trek as twin canonical texts of "Western Civ."
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Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance, by Alan N. Shapiro

July 29th, 2010 in Category: Book Descriptions, Media Studies, Science & Technology, Science Fiction Studies, Star Trek

In his lengthy review-essay of "Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance" in "Science Fiction Studies", coeditor Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr. remarks: "Shapiro’s study of Star Trek is one of the most original works of sf-theory since Scott Bukatman’s 'Terminal Identity' (1993)."
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The Technological Herbarium, by Gianna Maria Gatti

July 29th, 2010 in Category: Androids & Artificial Life, Arts & Genomics, Book Descriptions, Rethinking Science, Science & Technology, The Technological Herbarium

"The Technological Herbarium" is a study of works of art that exemplify the importance of science and technology in artistic creation. It embodies the invention of a strong philosophical concept that enables the glimpsing – in the coming together of nature and new technologies in the domain of art – of a new real.
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Journal Entry: The Void, by Mary Fox

July 28th, 2010 in Category: Creative Writing, Fiction, Martin Heidegger, P.D. Ouspensky

What follows is neither philosophical, nor academic. It is both self-indulgent and self-referential, as a journal can only be. It presents no “truths” and it is peppered with inconsistencies and flaws, because I am. I began my journal in May of this year in an attempt to retrieve myself from a guilt-ridden existential “tailspin.”
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Alan N. Shapiro interviewed by Gerry Ryan

July 23rd, 2010 in Category: Star Trek, Teleportation

I was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Gerry Ryan on April 30, 2010, Ireland's premier radio and television broadcaster. On June 1, 2005, I was interviewed for 45 minutes by Gerry on the Gerry Ryan Show - Ireland's most popular FM radio programme - about my book "Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance."
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“The Raven”

July 22nd, 2010 in Category: American Literature, Seven of Nine

Seven of Nine is an apprentice member of Voyager's crew who has "brought back" precise skills and efficiency from her long experience with the Borg. But she is a poor consumer. She does not know how to relax or enjoy, to participate in activities which are not directly productive.
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The Car of the Future, more sketches, by Nick Pugh

July 22nd, 2010 in Category: Car of the Future

Visualisations by the virtuoso concept artist-designer Nick Pugh.
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Baudrillard’s Second Life, by René Capovin

July 22nd, 2010 in Category: Jean Baudrillard, Media Studies

Baudrillard's appropriation of McLuhan's formula "the medium is the message" comes to be understood in the light of this radical critique of the media, recognized as an instance of making people passive. The Canadian scholar saw here liberatory possibilities, summed up in the noted image of the "global village."
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Georges Bataille and Epistemology

July 22nd, 2010 in Category: Georges Bataille

Bataille’s "Theory of Religion" and "The Accursed Share" have been read by a couple of generations of (hippie) Marxists, deconstructionists, and Baudrillard the man himself in economic terms. But, from the current situation of virtuality, it is most interesting to read these texts from an epistemological point of view.
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Around the Town (a Sports Gambling story), part 1 of 4

July 22nd, 2010 in Category: American Slang, Creative Writing, Sports Gambling

As they went inside Grand Central Station, Moe and Siggy saw more hurried commuters moving ahead with tunnel vision. Nobody wanted to look at the homeless. The bag ladies and street people would just put a damper on one’s day.
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Theses on Polysexuality

July 20th, 2010 in Category: Donna Haraway, Felix Guattari, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler, Polysexuality, Simone de Beauvoir

Polysexuality wants to build a bridge between the heterosexual majority and homosexual minorities. Polysexuality is about the sexual liberation of the majority, learning from practices and subcultural styles of queer minorities. The theory and practice of queer is very interesting, but it is not restricted to homosexuals.
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The End of Homo Oeconomicus

July 16th, 2010 in Category: Hans-Peter Dürr, Michel Foucault

As the physicist-philosopher Hans-Peter Dürr says, we must change our conception of what human beings are from Homo economicus (Economic human) to an idea of a Creative human.