Lately, I’ve been diving back into my philosophy text from undergrad days and re-exploring ideas that made little sense to me back then. I wouldn’t exactly say that the same ideas are understandable now but experience has led me to think much more critically. The most interesting aspect of what I’ve been reading has to do with this French philosopher named Jean Baudrillard and how he believes that meaning is derived from knowing what something is NOT. Basically, a dog is a dog because it’s not a cat. I know, simple right? But, what about other complex areas like, oh, I don’t know, art, or politics, or religion. All these things appear to be simulations so the world can make sense! Okay, fine, Baudrillard, Disneyland doesn’t exist!! Try telling my little cousins that. Yet, secretly, it’s true. Disneyland is an imagined place (or is it)? More to come…
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Dorothy R. Santos
Dorothy R. Santos (she/they) is a Filipino American writer, artist, and educator whose academic and research interests include feminist media histories, computational media, critical medical anthropology, technology, race, and ethics. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz as a Eugene V. Cota-Robles fellow. She received her Master’s degree in Visual and Critical Studies at the California College of the Arts and holds Bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Psychology from the University of San Francisco. Her work as been exhibited at Ars Electronica, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the GLBT Historical Society.
Her writing appears in art21, Art in America, Ars Technica, Hyperallergic, Rhizome, Vice Motherboard, and SF MOMA’s Open Space. Her essay “Materiality to Machines: Manufacturing the Organic and Hypotheses for Future Imaginings,” was published in The Routledge Companion to Biology in Art and Architecture. She is a co-founder of REFRESH, a politically-engaged art and curatorial collective and serves as the Executive Director for the Processing Foundation. She is an advisor for Brooklyn-based arts and tech organization POWRPLNT and Bay Area-based arts organization slash arts.
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