Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Speculation on the Trajectory of Human Kind

Kline, Amanda Le

Abstract Details

2014, Master of Fine Arts, Ohio State University, Art.
I am part of the Millennial Generation that grew up bearing it all on Facebook, and anybody can become a YouTube celebrity. All of our actions now have the potential to become spectacles to be shared with the masses. Technology influences everything, and it is changing at a dizzying pace. The future is an unknowable and exciting time. Knowing our history is important because it helps us understand our current condition. It is interpretations of these stories that get passed down through the generations. The work in Speculation on the Trajectory of Human Kind is how I deal with the technology and social media overload, by creating my own interpretation of human history through a cavewoman named Ugha and a future woman named Xugha. Ugha and Xugha are one and the same person, and act as a stand-in for me. In my historical interpretations I use narrative and humor to open the door for viewers to consider the serious and complex hypotheses being explored. It is easier for us to laugh at Ugha, a less developed person, than at ourselves, even though we may not have any more knowledge about the questions of life. I use Ugha, and her future self, Xugha, as starting points to evaluate where we are as a people now, and how we got to this point in our evolution. Questions about the emergence of our humanity cannot be answered with certainty. Just what is it that makes us human, where does this knowledge come from, and how can we trust it, are some of the larger questions that are at stake in my research. There are as many versions of the stories as there are sources. I am interested in the narratives the literature provides, and the ambiguity of our knowledge. The artifice of my sets serves to support the instability of the knowledge that inform the stories I tell. Flat, painted backgrounds and pedestrian materials such as cardboard are used for props. The museum diorama is a stylistic influence and sets the foundation for my departure. Museums are a trusted source of authority and truth, and a convention for transferring knowledge about common and well as exotic places, times, and beings. Capturing a cave or space age woman in photographs or on video is absurd because of the conflation of linear time. Video and the theories I am questioning both pretend to be objective, but are not. Contemporary humans are situated within a hyper-real time, where progressing technologies are blurring the boundaries between reality and unreality. Today everything happens online and real, person-to-person communication is being replaced by code. I use my videos of fabricated situations, environments, and characters to draw attention to the progression from the real to virtual. The characters within my work are spectacles to be observed and questioned. Because of the Internet, social media, and new forms of entertainment such as reality TV and user-based web content, we are all spectacles like Ugha and Xugha.
Robert Derr, MFA (Advisor)
Rebecca Harvey, MFA (Committee Member)
Jessica Mallios, MFA (Committee Member)
56 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Kline, A. L. (2014). Speculation on the Trajectory of Human Kind [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1404324124

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Kline, Amanda. Speculation on the Trajectory of Human Kind. 2014. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1404324124.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Kline, Amanda. "Speculation on the Trajectory of Human Kind." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1404324124

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)