Identifier

etd-05162016-133118

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Music

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

McLuhan.js is a media art performance platform which engages with the web browser as a source of form and content. The platform enables a new performance scenario: a performer creates live net art actions in the browsers of remote viewers. McLuhan.js contains client-side and server-side tools for creating net art, as well as a live coding performance interface. These tools are designed to remotely control real-time collages of web media, browser windows, and computer art tropes. While the McLuhan.js toolkit is deliberately of its time, it is so because it participates in a tradition of 20th-century artists who reflected on their daily lives by incorporating contemporary communications media into their creative practice. These artists consistently looked outward to found media as sources of inspiration. Empirical and experimental investigations into new media lead these artists to work directly with a medium’s raw materials—often in subversive or unorthodox patterns—to create new forms of art from the technological fabric of their era. The Last Cloud, a net art performance using McLuhan.js, reveals a dialogue with this artistic history. Its composition is described herein, along with a description of the McLuhan.js toolkit and a survey of the history it inherits.

Date

2016

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Beck, Stephen

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.861

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