CHTHONIC GLITCHINGS: EXAMINING THE FRAGMENTED REALITY PARADIGM OF DIGITAL MEDIATION AND ITS UNDERPINNINGS IN EURO-AMERICAN SOCIEITIES

Carley Culmo

Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Clark, Maribeth

Area of Concentration

Digital Media and Globalization

Abstract

Humans digital mediation practices reinforce and exhibit a pattern of separations that have come to characterize human relational activity, particularly in societies where Euro-American cultural ideology constitutes the dominant paradigm. Human technological advancement finds its initial motivation in mediating survival efforts as an alternative to or division within humans from proximate adherence to instinctual drives. The result is the increasing separation of humans from other species and multi-dimensional existence as engagement with digital screens becomes increasingly necessary to achieve physical survival in Euro-American societies. This thesis points to the ways that a pattern of internal and external separations that fragment and abrase the physical reality in Euro-American contexts through the propagation of two-dimensional image reproduction, the ubiquitous presence of disembodied, digitized sounds and the exploitative resourcing and dumping practices required for their material manifestation-- all of which enable similar patterns in a global context on material and abstract levels. Additionally, this thesis explores the implications of digital mediation’s coercive materiality on the human mind as earth matter, on socio-cultural conventions and constructions of reality paradigms, and on the capacity for harmonious inter-species relationships as this relates to ecosystemic viability and the long-term survival of diverse populations of species including our own.

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