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The Aesthetics of Unease: Telepresence Art and Hyper-Subjectivity

Haden, Heather Jean
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0609-2965
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1429862881

Abstract Details

2015, MA, Kent State University, College of the Arts / School of Art.
This thesis critically analyzes installations of telepresence art since 1986 and argues that the phenomological experience of engagement in telepresence suggests a new state of subjectivity at the end of the twentieth century: the hyper-subject, an overlapping of self and multiple others. I place telepresence art firmly in the genealogy of Surrealism by comparing artworks to Hans Bellmer's infinitely recombinant doll, La Poupee. While Bellmer represented the physical anagram of the body through the doll, telepresence art produces psychic anagrams of participants in the virtual sphere. Installations of telepresence art by multiple artists are probed to critically engage the artistic design of each, including humanoid telerobots, screen-based telepresence, and human avatars, and to assess their efficacy in upholding telepresence as what Lombard and Ditton define as "the perceptual illusion of non-mediation." By integrating psychoanalysis, post-anthropocentric posthumanism, and feminist disability theory, I examine telepresence art as a platform for social change. This research contributes the first art historical application of the uncanny valley to telepresence artworks, the first comparison of telepresence art to Bellmer's La Poupee, and advocates for more art historical research on the hyper-subject as a new state of viewing and experiencing art in the twenty-first century.
Navjotika Kumar, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Gina Zavota, Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair)
Gustav Medicus, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Fred Smith, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Diane Scillia, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Carol Salus, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
228 p.
Art History
Telepresence, Telepresence Art, Hyper-Subject, Hyperspace, Hans Bellmer, Surrealism, Uncanny Valley, Freud, Uncanny, Schizophrenia, Lacan, Mirror Stage, Psychoanalysis, Posthumanism, Feminist Disability Theory, Empathy, Monoculture, New Media

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Haden, H. J. (2015). The Aesthetics of Unease: Telepresence Art and Hyper-Subjectivity [Master's thesis, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1429862881

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Haden, Heather. The Aesthetics of Unease: Telepresence Art and Hyper-Subjectivity. 2015. Kent State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1429862881.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Haden, Heather. "The Aesthetics of Unease: Telepresence Art and Hyper-Subjectivity." Master's thesis, Kent State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1429862881

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1429862881
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© 2015, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.