Dirty) New Media: Technorhetorical Opacity, Chimeras
WRITING (DIRTY) NEW MEDIA: TECHNORHETORICAL OPACITY, CHIMERAS, AND DIRTY ONTOLOGY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the North Dakota State University of Agriculture and Applied Science By Steven Reginald Hammer In Partial Fulfillment for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Major Department: English Option: Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture April 2014 Fargo, North Dakota North Dakota State University Graduate School Title Writing (Dirty) New Media: TechnoRhetorical Opacity, Chimeras, and Dirty Ontology By Steven Reginald Hammer The Supervisory Committee certifies that this disquisition complies with North Dakota State University’s regulations and meets the accepted standards for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: Andrew Mara Chair Kevin Brooks Miriam Mara Michael Strand _ Thomas Stanley_______________________________________________ Approved: 7/1/2014 Gary Totten Date Department Chair ABSTRACT There is little doubt that emerging technologies are changing the way we act, interact, create, and consume. Yet despite increased access to these technologies, consumers of technology too seldom interrogate the politics, subjectivities, and limitations of these technologies and their interfaces. Instead, many consumers approach emerging technologies as objective tools to be consumed, and engage in creative processes uncritically. This disquisition, following the work of Hawisher, Selfe, and Selfe, seeks ways to approach the problem of a “rhetoric of technology” that uncritically praises new technologies by drawing on avant-garde art traditions and object-oriented ontology. I argue that, by following the philosophies and practices of glitch, dirty new media, zaum, dada, circuit-bending, and others, we might approach writing technologies with the intention of critically misusing, manipulating, and revealing to ourselves and audiences the materiality of the media and technologies in use.
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