Article
Remediating the Magic Kingdom: Notes Toward a Poetics of Technology
Currents in Electronic Literacy
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2008
Keywords
- Poets,
- Magic Kingdom,
- technology,
- production,
- distribution,
- consumption
Disciplines
Abstract
- In this essay, I will address the imagined technologies within and the existing technologies surrounding Cory Doctorow's sci-fi novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (DOMK ). DOMK takes place at a Disney theme park in a future where capitalism has been replaced by a reputation economy, death has been rendered obsolete by cloning technologies, and civic decisions are made by amorphous "ad-hocracies." These themes are neither new to sci-fi literature nor central to my discussion, however. By looking at DOMK 's technological context and its articulation of what Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin have termed the "double logic of remediation," I hope to suggest ways in which a critical awareness of literature and of technology can be collectively pursued to further what might be called a poetics of technology .
Comments
- In this essay, I will address the imagined technologies within and the existing technologies surrounding Cory Doctorow's sci-fi novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (DOMK ). DOMK takes place at a Disney theme park in a future where capitalism has been replaced by a reputation economy, death has been rendered obsolete by cloning technologies, and civic decisions are made by amorphous "ad-hocracies." These themes are neither new to sci-fi literature nor central to my discussion, however. By looking at DOMK 's technological context and its articulation of what Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin have termed the "double logic of remediation," I hope to suggest ways in which a critical awareness of literature and of technology can be collectively pursued to further what might be called a poetics of technology .
Citation Information
Eric Mason. "Remediating the Magic Kingdom: Notes Toward a Poetics of Technology" Currents in Electronic Literacy Iss. 8 (2008) ISSN: 1524-6493 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/eric-mason/50/