1st Edition

Prosthetic Culture

By Celia Lury Copyright 1998
    256 Pages
    by Routledge

    256 Pages
    by Routledge

    In a fascinating account of how technology is altering our consciousness, Celia Lury shows how the manipulation of photographic images and ways of seeing can so redefine the relation between consciousness, the body and memory as to create a 'prosthetic culture' whose capacities both extend and threaten our humanity.
    We live in a society in which some memories can be falsely implanted in the individual while others are stored in video archives of images, in which the powers of cartoon superheroes break through the limitations of time and space. Using the examples of photo-therapy, family albums, Benetton advertising campaigns, the phenomenon of false memory syndrome and the 'lives' of cartoon characters this book argues that the 'eyes' made available by contemporary visual technologies involve not simply specific ways of seeing, but also ways of life.

    Chapter 1 IDENTITY AND PROSTHETIC CULTURE; Chapter 2 THE EXPERIMENTAL INDIVIDUAL; Chapter 3 THE FAMILY OF MAN; Chapter 4 BECOME WHAT YOU ARE; Chapter 5 REMEMBER ME; Chapter 6 SEEING YOU, SEEING ME, SEEING PHOTOGRAPHICALLY; Chapter 7 MOVEMENT AND THE BODY OF PHOTOGRAPHY; Chapter 8 HUMANS, NON-HUMANS AND HEROES; Chapter 9 THE ETHICS OF SEEING PHOTOGRAPHICALLY; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX;

    Biography

    Celia Lury is a Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths College, University of London.