Richard Vickers

Thesis

Thesis

Curating the Self: Augmented Capitalism and the Ghost in Machine Intelligence.

Supervisors: Nick Jones, Jenna Ng

In contemporary society where conditions of platform culture prevail, life is presented as images of the self, distributed across networks. By curating our lives via social media, we contribute to a commodified presence endlessly remediated without a sense of purpose. We are both spectator and spectacle, simultaneously producers and consumers of the commodified mediated presence of the self. The condition of late capitalism I have called augmented capitalism. The research focuses on two questions: What are the defining features of augmented capitalism? What are the critiques of augmented capitalism? The creative practice aims to answer the second question by exploring the application of Artificial Intelligence, the latest component of augmented capitalism, in reconsidering present-day notions of consumerism and the spectacle. A machine-learning curated, computer (re)mediated and algorithmically edited critical commentary on contemporary consumer culture. The ultimate Marxist hack: capitalism will critique itself, the ghost in machine intelligence.