User:Pleun/grad/thesisoutline

-**** reminder: 'act' 'real'

Thesis Outline

The focus of this future existential text is a continuation and further exploration of the search for Technologies of the Self (one of four "technologies" as described by Michael Foucault is the Technologie of the Self: "[...] which permit individuals to effect by their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform I themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdowm, perfection, or immortality.") within neoliberal / networked societies / societies of control.

The question here is how this personal practice can exist, what it currently exists of and what it could be in a society in which boundaries are streched, privacy has transformed and personality is sold.

I am interested in how manners of dealing with these changes we see popping up everywhere in society are developing. After listing the ones that have caught my eye in the last year, I figured that what they have in common is that they all are a form of escapism. They don't really want to deal with the problems of daily life, but try to find distractions rather than solutions, or try to imagine a world where our struggles are being lifted from us in the end by a higher being (deus ex machina). Don't get me wrong, there have always been many different forms of escapism. Relieve has been found in alcohol, sports, religion, etc for centuries, but never in combination with a society that in my view has such opposite values within itself.

I see new subcultures like vaporwave as one big nostalgic contradiction in itself. Sensory deprivation tanks that commodify the fact that we can't escape the pressure of a society where we ourselves are commodified. Furthermore; I am interested in theories like hyperreality.

(And maybe I'll go into technology speculations about the Singularity, Internet of Things and hopes of colonizing Mars, but I have a feeling it will already be quite extensive)

Texts

Texts to read involve learning more about Technologies of the Self:

• Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault (PDF)

Learning more about Societies of Control, neoliberalism, capitalism:

• Postscript on societies on control – G. Deleuze (PDF)
• The rise of the network society – Manuel Castells (PAPER)
• Masters Of Reality (Chapter: Nudge Nudge) – Steve Rushton
• Discipline & Punish – Michel Foucault (PDF) (To dive deeper into disciplinary society)
• Foucault and Databases – Mark Poster (NEED TO GET IT)
• ‘protocol’ – A. Galloway (NEED TO GET IT)
• Desert of the Real - Zizek