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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Media theory: beyond the dualities of form and content, critical and enthusiastic, real and fake

February 4th, 2012 in Category: Media Studies

On January 26, 2012, I gave a lecture in the Speakers' Series of the Centre for the Study of Theory, Culture and Politics at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.
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How can we redefine information in the age of social media?

February 4th, 2012 in Category: 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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“Point, Click, Love”: A Novel by Molly Shapiro

January 14th, 2012 in Category: American Literature, Fiction, Social Media

Other commentators will talk about the "chick lit" dimension of the novel "Point, Click, Love." I will talk about the book’s intellectual side.
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A Turning Point for Media?

February 5th, 2011 in Category: Media Studies

Media studies has operated with a binary opposition or dualism between deep thinkers like Innis, McLuhan and Baudrillard who disparaged content and believed that "the medium is the message" and ordinary practitioners who wrote about content but in a way rather uninformed by theory.
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Teaching Two Media/Cultural Studies Seminars

January 28th, 2011 in Category: Media Studies, Quantum Culture

I am teaching two media/cultural studies seminars online at the VASA Project, founded and managed by Roberto Muffoletto, director of the Media Studies Ph.D. programme at a major American university.
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Star Trek: 20 Basic Principles

November 7th, 2010 in Category: Science Fiction Studies, Star Trek

Radical Uncertainty, The Vital Illusion, The Surprise of Technology, Recognition of Otherness, Boundaries of the Human, Symbolic Exchange, Non-Signifying Language, The Duel / Dual Relationship, Ambivalence Towards Hypermodern Science, The Butterfly Effect, Ambivalence Towards Virtual Reality...
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Halloween at Bayville Scream Park

October 29th, 2010 in Category: Horror

"WHEN SUMMER ENDS IN AUTUMN GLOOM THEN PIRATES RISE FROM GRAVE AND TOMB."
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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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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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Lost: The Crash Out of Globalization and into the World

May 24th, 2010 in Category: Lost, Martin Heidegger, Media Studies, Polysexuality

Combining elements of drama, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, adventure, thriller and Reality-TV, "Lost" is arguably the most original and influential TV program since "Star Trek" in the 1960s.
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Stefanie Schmidt, Film und Erinnerung

May 24th, 2010 in Category: Book Descriptions, Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, Jacques Lacan, Media Studies, Sigmund Freud

Im Hinblick auf einen vergleichenden Bezug zu der zeitphilosophiscen Filmtheorie von Gilles Deleuze werden die bildhaften und sprachlicen Aspekte des Gedächtnisses und des Films, wie sie enmal in Anschluss an die Linie Freud/Lacan und zum anderen bei Bergson/Deleuze entwickelt werden, diskutieret.
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Transmediale: The Long Conversation

April 15th, 2010 in Category: Media Studies

On February 5, 2010, Shapiro spoke at the FUTURITY NOW! Transmediale Festival in Berlin, as part of the LONG CONVERSATION event, engaging in dialogues onstage in the auditorium of the HOUSE OF WORLD CULTURES with the artists Jem Finer and Ken Rinaldo.
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“Twelve Monkeys” (film)

April 13th, 2010 in Category: Media Studies, Science Fiction Studies, Time Travel

Terry Gilliam’s brilliant film "Twelve Monkeys" raises critical questions about the linear nature of time and the causality of science. Möbius time travel will provide a fruitful tool for getting out of the hyperreality and myth of the end of history which surround us in modern culture.
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“Groundhog Day” (film)

April 13th, 2010 in Category: Media Studies, Time Travel

"Groundhog Day" is fascinating because it is time travel without a single history book adventure, science fiction without a single technological device, and the triumphant reign of the computer program without a single computer.
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“Desperate Living” (film): John Waters’ Science Fiction Dystopia

April 13th, 2010 in Category: Media Studies, Polysexuality, Science Fiction Studies

Maybe it was the mono sound of my budget-priced video recorder, which the salesperson at Saturn Hansa had dubbed the 'Trabant' (der Trabi, das Symbol eines verschwundenen Landes, the symbol of a disappeared country, hat heute längst Kultstatus erreicht, has long since attained cult status) of VCRs.
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