Alan N. Shapiro, Autonomy in the Digital Society

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

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Jean Baudrillard and Albert Camus on the Simulacrum of Taking a Stance on War, by Alan N. Shapiro

July 3rd, 2015 in the categories: War & Peace

Unlike some other thinkers, Jean Baudrillard is not ‘against war’. Baudrillard’s position is rather that of being ‘neither for nor against’ contemporary hyper-real mediatized wars, and seeing the imperative of choosing whether one is ‘for’ or ‘against’ war as being something of a forced and imposed simulacrum.
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How can we redefine information in the age of social media?, by Alan N. Shapiro

February 12th, 2013 in the categories: Information Society, Social Media

On January 24, 2012, I was a keynote speaker at the BOBCATSSS conference on Information Management in Amsterdam. The conference was organised by students from 3 universities of applied sciences, namely Hogeschool van Amsterdam (NL), Hanze Hogeschool Groningen (NL), and Stuttgart Media University (GER).
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Improving the Information Society Through Awareness of Languages, by Alan N. Shapiro

February 12th, 2013 in the categories: Information Society, Language

This is the text of a paper that I presented at the ISEA2011 festival of new media, electronic and digital arts in Istanbul, Turkey on September 21, 2011.
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Cultural Citizenship in Contemporary America, by Alan N. Shapiro

February 12th, 2013 in the categories: Consumer Culture, Jean Baudrillard

The damaged life of the fragmented individual, performing his duties in the system of production, is circumscribed by a universe of self-referential images and solipsistic spaces which sustain his socialization in that system.
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General Patton Memorial Museum

June 30th, 2011 in the categories: Museum of the Future, War & Peace

I felt that the General Patton Memorial Museum, and especially the "Ed Hastey Military Vehicle Park" next to it, has some elements embodying the basic principle of the "Museum of the Future" as I conceive it.
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Multimedia Real-Time Live In-Play Sports Gambling

April 21st, 2011 in the categories: Information Society, Sports Gambling

Sports gambling at the MGM Grand Casino-Hotel, Las Vegas
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Learning to Love Androids: The Wondrous World of the Universal Scholar Alan Shapiro, by Florian Fricke

December 14th, 2010 in the categories: Quantum Physics Sociology

The journalist Florian Fricke is the winner of the 2010 German Environmental Media Prize.
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A Critique of the Idea of Neutral Language, by Marc Silver

May 26th, 2010 in the categories: Chaim Perelman, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Language, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sigmund Freud, Wikipedia

There has been intense scrutiny brought to bear upon the ways in which various disciplines deploy rhetorical devices to “argue their case,” as well as to consolidate their identities and maintain them intact. Marc Silver builds his argument upon such topical foundations, but also shifts the ground in new and original ways.
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Europe at War in Serbia and Kosovo, by Alan N. Shapiro

April 14th, 2010 in the categories: Information Society, War & Peace

On March 24, 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization initiated a bombing campaign from 15,000 feet vectored towards designated targets inside the territory of Yugoslavia.
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Consumer Culture and Naming the Animals, by Alan N. Shapiro

April 14th, 2010 in the categories: Consumer Culture, New American Studies, Roland Barthes

In his famous essay "Myth Today," published in 1957, Roland Barthes added a second dimension to the semiotic analysis of Ferdinand de Saussure, to the insight of the Swiss linguist that language is a social institution. Barthes added a social theory of culture to the social theory of language.