Machines: A Critique of New Media

“Consider, if you will, Me++.” This seminar explores new ways of thinking about the self, society, art, life, politics, and the unconscious that have emerged through theories and practical experimentation with a loose assemblage of things that we call machines. Here, it is the assemblage, rather than the thing, that is to be understood as machinic. Machines invite us to think not about essences but about the event: “not about is but about and.” In this seminar, the notion of a machinic assemblage provides a framework for exploring how we engage with digital media today. In the way that Saussure’s discoveries in linguistics revolutionized the study of literature in the 20th century, it may be that today the study of digital media is reshaping our understanding of reading, writing, and interpretive practices. The interaction of text, image, graphics, and design in the digital work of art also requires creative re-examination of our aesthetic traditions. This seminar contextualizes these emerging forms of art practices within social, economic, political, and aesthetic theories that address the significance of cybernetics, computing, the Internet, and digital media in the contemporary world.