Conference paper
Digital Frankensteins: The Post-organic Bodies of Digital Animation
National Academy of Screen and Sound
Diegetic Life Forms II: Creative arts practice and new media scholarship (Murdoch University, Western Australia, 03/09/2010–05/09/2010)
2011
Abstract
In 1818, Mary Shelley wrote a story about post-organic presence. Most of us know this story reasonably well: Victor Frankenstein, a student of the sciences, discovers how to create artificial life; he animates his monster, a fragmented and hideous being, then abandons him in disgust and horror; the monster wreaks vengeance. This is a story about the tension between nature and technology, organism and machine, beauty and monstrosity, birth and construction; above all, as Anne K. Mellor points out, the novel Frankenstein “is profoundly concerned with natural as opposed to un-natural modes of production and reproduction”.1 In writing this tale, Shelley was drawing from myths and stories that were much older. Indeed, Shelley’s Frankenstein takes its place in a long line of stories that can be traced back to the ancient Greek myths of Prometheus and Pygmalion – stories that articulate a cultural fascination with the act of techno-production in its oldest sense.
Details
- Title
- Digital Frankensteins: The Post-organic Bodies of Digital Animation
- Authors/Creators
- E. Hawley (Author/Creator)
- Conference
- Diegetic Life Forms II: Creative arts practice and new media scholarship (Murdoch University, Western Australia, 03/09/2010–05/09/2010)
- Publisher
- National Academy of Screen and Sound
- Identifiers
- 991005545254007891
- Copyright
- © IM/NASS 2011.
- Murdoch Affiliation
- School of Media, Communication and Culture
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Conference paper
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