Alan N. Shapiro, Hypermodernism, Hyperreality, Posthumanism

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

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Die Bibliothek der Zukunft – The Library of the Future, von/by Alan N. Shapiro

October 20th, 2010 in the categories: Future Design, Library of the Future

The concept of libraries as they are is in many ways obsolete. I am speaking about university libraries, public libraries, and online libraries. Recently, I looked closely at the websites of about 150 university libraries, primarily in the USA, but also in the UK, Australia, Germany, and other European and Asian countries.
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My Hometown is Roslyn, Long Island, New York

October 15th, 2010 in the categories: New American Studies

Sometime around 1980, I sat inside my hometown library in the "haute bourgeoise" town of Roslyn and read all the books they had about the student-worker near-revolution in May-June 1968 in France: books like Alain Touraine's "The Movement of May" and Alfred Willener's "The Action-Image of Society."
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Play, Don’t Work at Bayville Adventure Park

October 14th, 2010 in the categories: New American Studies

Driving Game, NBA Hoops BONUS, WHEEL A WIN, BASKET FORTUNE, SKEE BALL - TOWER OF POWER, The Jewelry Box, MONOPOLY - coin game, BASKETBALL - mini dunxx, PHAROAH'S TREASURE, JUMPIN' JACKPOT, Pirate's Adventure, MAD WAVE MOTION THEATER, THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD by SEGA
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After Ebbets Field and Shea Stadium: CitiField

October 14th, 2010 in the categories: Baseball, New American Studies

I went to my first two games at CitiField in September 2010. The Mets won both games, beating up on a minor league team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was part of a four-game sweep.
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Baudrillard and Trek-nology (Or Everything I Know I Learned From Watching Star Trek and Reading Jean Baudrillard), by Alan N. Shapiro

October 10th, 2010 in the categories: Jean Baudrillard, Star Trek

It was my childhood in New York in the late 1960s. As a good Jew, I was supposed to acquire a Jewish education. But instead I loved Star Trek. Everything I know I learned from watching Star Trek.
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From The Technological Herbarium, by Gianna Maria Gatti – Interactive Plant Growing and Trans Plant by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau (translated by Alan N. Shapiro)

October 4th, 2010 in the categories: Arts & Genomics, The Illusion Beyond Art, The Technological Herbarium

Botany forms the basis of Christa Sommerer's training: she dedicated herself to it after her secondary studies, at the Faculty of Biology and Botany of Vienna. Her intention was to investigate nature applying and elaborating methods suitable to the classification of plants. to achieve the formulation of systematic rules.
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From The Technological Herbarium, by Gianna Maria Gatti – Nerve Garden by Bruce Damer (translated by Alan N. Shapiro)

October 4th, 2010 in the categories: Real/Virtual Reality, The Illusion Beyond Art, The Technological Herbarium

Nerve Garden is a three-dimensional virtual world accessible on the Internet, a "Public Terrarium in Cyberspace," according to the definition of its authors, where the users of the Net can sow and witness the growth of virtual plants.
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Interview with AVINUS Press about The Technological Herbarium

September 8th, 2010 in the categories: Humanities Informatics, The Technological Herbarium

"The Technological Herbarium" is an interdisciplinary work, and it places into question in a very strong way the existing division of knowledge into separate spheres like art, technology, natural science, and computer science. I don’t think that these separate categories of disciplinary knowledge are helpful at all anymore.
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Passing: Franco La Polla

August 23rd, 2010 in the categories: Uncategorized

Franco La Polla died in Pavia, Italy on February 27, 2009. From 2004 to 2007, La Polla was Professor of the History of Cinema, and Director of the Department of Music and Theatre (DAMS) at the University of Bologna. For 30 years, La Polla was Professor of the History of American Literature.
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The Car of the Future, folding study, by Nick Pugh

August 5th, 2010 in the categories: Car of the Future, Future Design

Visualisations by the virtuoso concept artist-designer Nick Pugh.
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The Car of the Future, alternate modes, by Nick Pugh

August 5th, 2010 in the categories: Car of the Future, Future Design

Visualisations by the virtuoso concept artist-designer Nick Pugh
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The Car of the Future, detail sketches, by Nick Pugh

August 4th, 2010 in the categories: Car of the Future, Future Design

Visualisations by the virtuoso concept artist-designer Nick Pugh.
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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)."
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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.
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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.”
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