Date of Award
Spring 6-6-2021
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Digital Media
First Advisor
Adela Goldbard
Second Advisor
Mark Cetilia
Third Advisor
Joel Slayton
Abstract
Silicon Valley is a place that grew out of the legends of the frontier. It has followed in the footsteps of Hollywood Westerns, counterculture frontiersmen, and cyberspace cowboys.
In Silicon Valley, the frontier has been a physical and a metaphorical landscape found between everything existing and everything new-- between ideas of the future shaping technology and technology shaping ideas of the future. This seemingly vast open landscape allows the well-meaning cowboy to use his unique position of privilege to spot and solve systemic technological and social issues.
As these Silicon Valley Cowboys enter the frontier in search of new unclaimed space, they end up wandering into the invisible recursive loops of the same particular future narrative and aesthetics.
Recommended Citation
Bright, Emily, "Bootstrapped: the Cowboy Nomad from Silicon Valley" (2021). Masters Theses. 629.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/629
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Comments
View exhibition online: Emily Bright, Station X Æ A-12bit.ly/3b2AcvP