Digital media--Social aspects.

This dissertation makes the connection between the human drive, as described by psychoanalysis, to construct God and the construction of the technological entity, Google. Google constitutes the extension of the early Christian period God to the twenty-first century. From the examination of significant religious and theological texts by significant theologians (Augustine, Thomas, Luther, Calvin, etc.) that explain the nature of God, the analogous relationship of God to Google will open a psychoanalytic discourse that answers questions on the current state of human mediation with the world. Freud and, more significantly, Lacan’s work connects the human creation of God, ex nihilio, to Google’s godly qualities and behaviors (omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and omnibenevolence). This illustrates the powerful motivation behind the creation of an all-encompassing physical / earthly entity that includes the immaterial properties of God. Essentially, Google operates as the extension or replacement of the long reigning God in Western culture. Furthermore, the advent of science and technology through rationalism (as outlined by Nietzsche) results in the death of the metaphysical God and the ascension of the technological God. Google offers an appropriate example for study. Moreover, the work of Jean Baudrillard and Marshall McLuhan will further comment on Google as the technological manifestation of God, particularly in its media formulations. Finally, this dissertation concludes with a review that highlights future research with an exploration that foresees the death of Google from the same rational method of inquiry by which the death of God occurred at the end of the nineteenth century.

Belongings hybridizes photography, sculpture, and printmaking through new laser
technology. The exhibited work communicates a lingering sense of homesickness and
maps a path through the objects discovered in my father’s wallet shortly after his passing.

My intention for this show is to explore the effect of alienation that ironically is being
produced by social media. The principal concept is developed around shame, sharing, and
notoriety on three different social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and
Telegram. This show explores the social media perception of myself in the realms of
human interaction, identity, and memory in social media through the critical
appropriation of the languages of design and photography. The installation with four
Facebook profile pictures in large scale and framed looks at the way a personal image can
convey the impression of widely different personalities. The selections of personal
exchanges over Facebook and Instagram show the degree to which social media creates
its own visual language and mode of communication, which sometimes becomes
separated from reality and intention. The show extends its reach to performance and
direct interaction with the viewer through the availability of stickers for comments by the profile pictures and a third area, where viewers can write or draw their own messages
through the simple medium of chalk, which can then be rendered in virtual form through
posts on a specially created webpage. The viewer should thus be challenged to ask, to
what degrees do words and images communicate the essence of our selves and our own
will.