4. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - Faculties submissions
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Item Could Not Sing in the Dead Heat: Liner Notes Under the Sun(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Ramphalile, Molemo Karabo; Schuhmann, AntjeOn the one hand we place blackness as a historical if inconsistent category inextricable with morbidity, disfavour, depravity, mystery, wretchedness, penumbra, opacity or absence of light, and the abyssal – in both secular and religious metaphysical symbolism. On the other hand we place space as a historical and physical category denoting area, range, clearance, scope, volume, expanse, lacunae, aperture, margin, and in its instance as verb – opening, arranging, ordering, placing, separating, and locating; which in cosmography, geography and cartography finds its varied imaginative and applied interpretation. We coalesce what is in both hands in order to envisage how blackness persistently becomes and comes to be the extractable property of sub-Saharan Africans. Through various ontological-cosmographic- geographic designations such as Torrid Zone, ‘land of the blacks’ or even terra nullius, we encounter visualisations of a territory and expanse that is always either completely devoid of people or inadequately peopled, that is, the territory whence blackness as inextricably embodied (or fleshened) exists and is cultivated. Blackness: not only does it determine our modes of being, or non-being, in this world, but for us in this study, it is also an experiential, experimental and analytical lens permitting the suggestion and scribing of historical narratives and discourses that centre the inveterate decentring of blacks. In the tradition of liner notes, this study is written in a performative relation to the subject or object at hand; there under the sun, in the dead heat.Item The Intersection of Systemic Racism and Technology and the Consequences for Video Games(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-08) Flusk, Timothy; Reid, KieranThe paper documents and reviews the process by which consequences of systemic racism is found in video games through the medium of technology. The principal idea of technology is used broadly to accommodate all media produced by society as tools for wielding and enforcing capitalist ideology. This is used as a means of revealing and mapping the cultural epistemic domain that dominates the West and its former colonies. The principal methodology is drawn from D. Fox Harrel’s Phantasmal Media: An Approach to Imagination, Computation and Expression. The process focuses on using the idea of the phantasmal generation within media, by individuals within systems. As such the process of these phantasm expressing or revealing themselves in various media is tracked and studied from both sides of the process: where they come from and how they are expressed. The principal approach situates the discussion of developing video games within the West, specifically the United States of America. The case studies used to illustrate and apply the methodology include Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and NBA2K17. These are placed in context along side their appropriate phantasmal sibling and representation. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is interrogated through the lens of capitalism and the representation of Black criminals in media. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is placed in context of fantasy genre and colonialism. NBA2k17 is placed in context of traditional racist perspectives of Black, athleticism and sport. All case studies utilise the principal twin approach of separating phantasms into hegemonic teleological expectation and ontological racist assertions. This allows the encapsulation of ludic systems as well narrative and character representation within the games.