Author

Jimi DePriest

Date of Award

2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Vesperi, Maria

Area of Concentration

Anthropology

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to critique the neoliberal exploitation of science, technology, and media while conceptualizing how hacktivism can be used to disrupt the operations of neoliberal institutions. I will explore how the proletariat can use DIY and decentralized forms of techno scientific creations to fight and dismantle imperialism and devising how these creations can function as tools for catalyzing a post-capitalist society. I will also examine how the relationship between human and nonhuman organisms is continually redefined by abrasive technologies and digital media. I address how hacktivist actions framed as insurrectionary ritualistic practice can alter the digital and physical fabric of social relations. The artworks which accompany this thesis will aim to break understandings of one’s relationship to the body as a biological organism out of the oppressive paradigms of technocratic society, questioning the sacrality of the digital by unpacking what it means to perpetually bear virtual witness to global violence while existing in the imperial core. The works are an attempt at using art to inspire the overthrow of technocracy and the insertion of egalitarian relations into society as it enters an inevitable descent into a post/trans humanist future.

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