Survey of Themes in Cultural Theory

Postindustrialism

• Information economy;  Meanings rather than things

Electronic Media and Other Technology

• Profound effects of technoplogy  & media - changes in social relationships and consciousness
• Hyperreality (Baudrillard); difficulty of determining truth & meaning

Postmodernism (philosophy)

• Radical eclecism;  integration of diverse ideologies; wariness about truth claims
• Scepticism about progress;  prior domination of western, male hegemonic thought

Postmodernism (art)

• Questioning of dominance of Modernism (self referential focus); Questioning one stream of "progress"
• Disappearance of "aura" (Benjamin);  New media demystify image and art; Pastiche

Structuralism, Semiotics, Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction

• Focus on underlying cultural structures & language(semiotics) that shape thought
• Understanding the "texts"(Barthes) and discourses;  search for "meta-narratives" (eg Art world domination)
• Deconsturct the narratives that have privileged discourse (eg sick & well);  role of media in shaping discourse
• Even Western analytical thought and presentation can be deconstructed;  find new patterns of "jouissance"

Role of the Artist and Disappearance of the Avant-Garde

• Question image of artist as creative genius with special sensitivities
• No avant-garde when there is not single path of progress
• Art world self blindness - assimilation of old "revolutionary" movements
• Death of the author (Barthes)  - all are recombining received texts

 Two papers elaborate this theme of artist involvement in research in more detail:

• Dark and Light Visions: The Relationship of Cultural Theory to Art that Uses Emerging Technology 

 

- This page created by Stephen Wilson, Professor Conceptual/Information Arts, SFSU  swilson@sfsu.edu    - More information about the Conceptual / Information Arts program   - This page is part of a section whose master  is at http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~swilson/emerging/wilson.newtech.html **Note this section is being generated as part of new book Information Arts by Stephen Wilson (to be published by MIT Pess, 2000).  It is in state of major revision.  Feel free to use these resources  for non- commercial purposes but please attribute source. Copyright, 1999 Stephen Wilson. New facelift by Frozen Media Design 12/99