Non-Organic Vitality and Tech-Noir: Understanding Technology's Reproductive Impulse

Abstract

This thesis examines the significance of the Tech-Noir film genre, outlining its history, style, and aesthetics, together with the genre’s critical role in the development of contemporary image-making practice and innovation. The influence of this genre (and its thematic affect) is evaluated through key films of the 1980s and 1990s, a period that simultaneously exhibits the growing interest in computer-generated images and the growing concern of rapid technological advancement, resulting in a dichotomous response to technology, both in creative sectors and mainstream media. Tech-Noir embodies these divisive attitudes through its own compound structure, which echoes both a technological and categorial discomposure. The primary objective of this thesis is to uncover the value of Tech-Noir, not only as a rich and complex reflection on technological advancement, but also as an independent category distinguishable from comparable science-fiction sub-genres. This is developed through the philosophical and aesthetic concept of ‘non- organic vitality’ and its application to the human body, the spaces this body inhabits, and the ways in which this inhabitation is documented across selected technological categories within the visual arts (beginning with architecture and ending with film).