Thesis Outline

The focus of this future existential text is a 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 in a society in which boundaries are streched, privacy has transformed and personality is sold. Answers will be sought in different areas, which I will try to describe. I am interested in how manners of dealing with these changes we see popping up everywhere in society are developing and their history. We see new subcultures like vaporwave. Futurist technology speculations about the Singularity, Internet of Things and hopes of colonizing Mars. I want to dive further into philosophical texts and theory about existentialism, nihilism and hyperreality. And I want to explore the commodification again of us trying to deal with being a commodity ourselves; like sensory deprivation tanks.

All these ways of dealing with modern society have a thing in common: they 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 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.

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)