Adrienne Matheuszik
Ambiguous Origins: Mixed Race and Mixed Reality
This thesis draws connections among new media art practices, science fiction, and mixed-race identity to compare the boundaries between physical and digital space and the experience of unrecognized layers of identity. Referencing the writing of N. Katherine Hayles and Amanda Starling Gould, I investigate the perceived border between physical and digital and how the liminality of the boundary can be compared to that of white-presenting mixed-race identity. This thesis uses science fiction tropes and imagery to communicate the contingency and liminality of identity. The writing of Frederic Jameson and Ytasha Womack is discussed, regarding the critical potential of science fiction to address the presumed correlation between mixed-race identities and the future. This thesis challenges the idea of mixed-race identities as inherently objective, a potential solution to racial oppression, or something from the future. This thesis instead focuses on mixed-race positioning as embedded and contingent within social and historical contexts.