Alan N. Shapiro, Hypermodernism, Hyperreality, Posthumanism

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

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From Sociology to Media Studies to Software Studies, part two

March 8th, 2021 in the categories: Media Studies, Sociology

The study of the societal consequences and existential meanings of digital technologies has today, in effect, merged with media studies: this is called the field of “digital media.”
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Fiktion ist der Schlüssel zu kreativen Lösungen, von Alan N. Shapiro

June 25th, 2019 in the categories: Fiction, Future Design

Der Triumph Donald Trumps als US-Präsidentschaftskandidat der Republikaner im Jahr 2016 veranschaulicht die wachsende und allgegenwärtige Konfusion zwischen dem ,Realen‘ und dem Virtuellen in der zeitgenössischen Geschichtssituation der Hypermoderne.
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What is hyper-modernism?, by Alan N. Shapiro

March 24th, 2016 in the categories: History, Science Fiction Studies

The reflection on hyper-modernism has to be epistemologically recursive. The form of the discourse must be consistent with what hyper-modernism is. I must avoid having a contradiction between content and presentation in my discourse. I cannot speak about hyper-modernism via a simple linear narrative, a chronology, which would be modernist. I must also be embodied and performative in what I am saying.
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Homage to Bernie Sanders’ Democratic Socialism and George Orwell’s 1984, by Alan N. Shapiro

February 17th, 2016 in the categories: English Literature, Presidential Politics

On April 4th of a year he presumes to be 1984, Winston Smith positions himself in a small recessed space in his apartment, the only spot from which he cannot be observed by the telescreen. He begins to tranfer his “interminable restless monologue” onto the pages of a clandestinely procured hardbound writing tablet.
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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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International Flusser Lecture, by Alan N. Shapiro

February 9th, 2013 in the categories: Computer Science 2.0, Media Studies

On July 10, 2012, I gave the International Flusser Lecture at the University of the Arts in Berlin. Related to this lecture, a small book by me in German will be published in the International Flusser Lecture series by the Walther Koenig Verlag.
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“Mad Men” and the Sociology of Advertising Consumer Culture, by Venecia Suriel de Häusler

January 25th, 2013 in the categories: Media Studies

A new consumer culture emerged in which the advertising industry functions as a central medium to create and promote product images. "Mad Men" depicts with striking fidelity the original business context of the American advertising industry of the 1960s.
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Macht- und Hierarchieverhältnisse am Beispiel von „The Wire“, von Jaška Klocke

January 25th, 2013 in the categories: Media Studies

Es interessiert mich vor allem die Frage, in wie weit sich Macht auf der einen Seite in den Strukturen des Drogenkartells im Western Baltimores angeführt von Avon Barksdale, mit den hierarchischen Machtstrukturen innerhalb der polizeilichen Sonderkommission und deren Vorgesetzten ähneln.
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“The Wire” and Luhmann’s Systems Theory, by Yara Scholtis

January 25th, 2013 in the categories: Media Studies

The Wire’s exploration of sociological themes is truly exceptional. Indeed I do not hesitate to say that it has done more to enhance our understandings of the challenges of urban life and urban inequality than any other media event or scholarly publication, including studies by social scientists.
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Reality and Simulation in “The Prisoner,” by Caroline Fuchs

January 25th, 2013 in the categories: Jean Baudrillard, Media Studies

For most of the Villagers it is not possible to separate between what is real and what is simulated. A simulation is created in The Village through the use of media. But what if most of what the Villagers do, see and live is a simulation? Can there even be a reality behind that façade?
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“Out of thin air” – Mask and Representation in “Mad Men,” by Marten Weise

January 25th, 2013 in the categories: Media Studies

The American TV Show Mad Men, first broadcast in July 2007, has received a lot of positive critique and has also been awarded with many well-known prizes. According to my reading of the series, the most important aspect in it is another representation of (re)presentation itself, namely identity.
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Time-Memory-Experience (part 4 of 4), by Anja Wiesinger and Alan N. Shapiro

June 9th, 2012 in the categories: Computer Science 2.0, Media Studies

Let us now take a look at the specific modes of time of the computer. In what comes next we would like to look into the timeliness of the computer itself, the rhythm created by the machine and by the user, and, lastly, the perception of time produced in the interaction between user and machine.
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Time-Memory-Experience (part 2 of 4), by Anja Wiesinger

April 24th, 2012 in the categories: Computer Science 2.0, Media Studies

ARTstor hence differs from a traditional archive, altering the traditional functions of an archive to become also a social media in which the material is constantly reworked, newly sorted, and transformed.
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Time, Memory, Experience (part 1 of 4), by Anja Wiesinger

April 24th, 2012 in the categories: Computer Science 2.0, Media Studies

My project is to revise the theories and concepts that arose in the advent of the Internet in the early 1990s, when the Internet emerged from a blank canvas and served as a projection for dreams about utopian cyberspace. Have these theories of New Media and New Technologies stood the test of time?
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