Alan N. Shapiro, Hypermodernism, Hyperreality, Posthumanism

Blog and project archive about media theory, science fiction theory, and creative coding

Read Article

Star Trek: Technologies of Disappearance, by Alan N. Shapiro

July 29th, 2010 in the categories: 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)."
Read Article

The Technological Herbarium, by Gianna Maria Gatti

July 29th, 2010 in the categories: 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.
Read Article

Journal Entry: The Void, by Mary Fox

July 28th, 2010 in the categories: 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.”
Read Article

Alan N. Shapiro interviewed by Gerry Ryan

July 23rd, 2010 in the categories: 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."
Read Article

The Car of the Future, more sketches, by Nick Pugh

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

Visualisations by the virtuoso concept artist-designer Nick Pugh.
Read Article

Baudrillard’s Second Life, by René Capovin

July 22nd, 2010 in the categories: 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."
Read Article

Georges Bataille and Epistemology

July 22nd, 2010 in the categories: 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.
Read Article

Around the Town (a Sports Gambling story), part 1 of 4

July 22nd, 2010 in the categories: 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.
Read Article

The End of Homo Oeconomicus

July 16th, 2010 in the categories: 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.