Alan N. Shapiro
media theory,
science fiction theory,
future design research

Here I will post comments about my book “Venice in Las Vegas” as they come in.

By Giorgio Cipolletta. The review originally appeared at Noemalab.eu.

By Florian Arnold. The review originally appeared in the Vilem Flusser Archive at the University of the Arts, Berlin.

One of the great novels of the twentieth century is The Stranger by Albert Camus. François Ozon’s new film adaptation is playing in movie theaters. The Stranger has been adapted across different media by creators from Algeria, Turkey, Italy, Argentina, and France.

While the technological simulation hypothesis, promoted by thinkers such as Nick Bostrom and Elon Musk, suggests that reality may be an artificial environment created by an advanced civilization, I argue that cultural simulation provides a more convincing explanation of present-day social life.

In addition to the structural consciousness of the smart home, activated by my functional consciousness, there can be the creative, phantasmal consciousness, given free play by my sensory imagination and expressed and merged with flexible phantasmal media applications.

“The first casualty of war is the truth.” The new formulation: The first casualty of post-truth is the post-war or hyper-war calamity. It is the fractal, viral, pandemic-like catastrophe spreading in all directions like a cancerous metastasis once known as war.

We can become AI: think, speak, and act like AI. Then we are not only offloading our intelligence and creativity to AI; we are learning from the patterns of that “other” or “alien” intelligence. By meeting the AI in the middle and mimicking it, we co-create a hybrid expressivity or computational aesthetics.

This is a revised version of the text that I read aloud at the memorial service honoring Jerry Kogan in early 2014. About 200 people who knew and loved Jerry were in attendance.

On October 31, 2025, I was a keynote speaker at the conference on “Media and Communication” at the University of Sakarya, Turkey. On November 4, 2025, I was a keynote speaker at the conference on Turkish cinema at the same university.

I am currently a candidate for President of the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA). Anyone who wishes to discuss my candidacy with me is encouraged to contact me to engage in dialogue. You can write me an e-mail.