Abstract
The dissertation investigates the importance of the ‘artificial post computing’, i.e. after the invention of computing in the mid-20th century as a form of creative imagination: that is, as a creative horizon for envisioning, articulating, and guiding a human world.
The invention of the computer spurs a host of conjectures – significations, material and immaterial – which over five decades develop and project – create – a novel articulation of what the human world is and to what it may amount. It is thus possible to view computing from the perspective of a creative dimension – or institution, significative by its articulative work, touching on issues from the cyberspace to the internet and from the internet to us. In the dissertation this imaginary institution is termed the ‘imaginary of the artificial’.
The dissertation presents seven chapters which attempt to indicate the imaginary of the artificial from different angles and positions, written in sequence but in different contexts. In the dissertation they function as case studies of the imaginary of the artificial. As a guiding metatheory Cornelius Castoriadis’s philosophy of the “imaginary institution of society” is used.
However, the dissertation does not pretend a full treatment of the prospects inherent in the conjecture of the imaginary of the artificial. It attempts a substantial indication of a problem which is defined in more precise terms as a schisma between technological organization and creative constitution. While the imaginary of the artificial is creative, its significations most often recur to a constitution by technology.
The dissertation can be graded by the following division: 1. Background and introduction: the issue of culture of technology and studies thereof – chapter 2 and chapter 3. 2. The plausibility of the imaginary of the artificial: three aspects – chapter 4, chapter 5, and chapter 6. 3. A novel framework for techology studies: self-organization and self-creation – chapter 7. This chapter offers a concluding underlignment of the plausibility of the substantial indication presented.
The dissertation contributes to cultural studies of technology, design research, new media research, as well as to the philosophy of technology. Moreover it contributes to the understanding of creativity as a collective phenomenon in the postwar era, in particular to Cornelius Castoriadis’s philosophy in this regard.
The invention of the computer spurs a host of conjectures – significations, material and immaterial – which over five decades develop and project – create – a novel articulation of what the human world is and to what it may amount. It is thus possible to view computing from the perspective of a creative dimension – or institution, significative by its articulative work, touching on issues from the cyberspace to the internet and from the internet to us. In the dissertation this imaginary institution is termed the ‘imaginary of the artificial’.
The dissertation presents seven chapters which attempt to indicate the imaginary of the artificial from different angles and positions, written in sequence but in different contexts. In the dissertation they function as case studies of the imaginary of the artificial. As a guiding metatheory Cornelius Castoriadis’s philosophy of the “imaginary institution of society” is used.
However, the dissertation does not pretend a full treatment of the prospects inherent in the conjecture of the imaginary of the artificial. It attempts a substantial indication of a problem which is defined in more precise terms as a schisma between technological organization and creative constitution. While the imaginary of the artificial is creative, its significations most often recur to a constitution by technology.
The dissertation can be graded by the following division: 1. Background and introduction: the issue of culture of technology and studies thereof – chapter 2 and chapter 3. 2. The plausibility of the imaginary of the artificial: three aspects – chapter 4, chapter 5, and chapter 6. 3. A novel framework for techology studies: self-organization and self-creation – chapter 7. This chapter offers a concluding underlignment of the plausibility of the substantial indication presented.
The dissertation contributes to cultural studies of technology, design research, new media research, as well as to the philosophy of technology. Moreover it contributes to the understanding of creativity as a collective phenomenon in the postwar era, in particular to Cornelius Castoriadis’s philosophy in this regard.
| Original language | Danish |
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| Place of Publication | University of Copenhagen |
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| Publisher | Faculty of Humanities |
| Publication status | Published - 2005 |