Frank Maet. Nieuwe artistieke tijden. Een filosofische kritiek van een door technologie bepaalde kunst. [New artistic times. A philosophical critique of the relation between art and technology]. Proefschrift Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. PhD supervisors: Prof.dr. J. de Mul and Prof.dr. P. de Graeve (Catholic Universitety Leuven).
PhD defense: 17 november, 2011.

PhD Committee:
Prof.dr. G. Groot (Faculty of Philosophy. Erasmus University Rotterdam / Faculty of Arts, Radboud University Nijmegen)
Prof.dr. A. van den Braembussche (Faculty Arts and Philosophy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
Prof.dr. Th. de Duve (Département d'arts plastiques, Université Lille 3).

My research concerns the contemporary relation between art and technology, and focuses on the critical potential of their interaction. In each chapter another dimension of the relationship is thought through: the present-day situation of the art world (chapter 1); the history of art of the 20th and 21st century (chapter 2); the metaphysical dimension of art and technology (chapter 3); the (post)kantian philosophy of art (chapter 4); postkantian art criticism (chapter 5). In the 6th and last chapter all analyses are brought together in relation to a recent work of art: the movie Zidane, a 21st Century Portrait by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno. In this last chapter I also present a new image of art: “the art of transitivity”.

Michiel de Lange, Moving Circles: Mobile Technologies and Playful Identities. PhD thesis written in the context of the NWO funded research program Playful Identities. From Narrative to Ludic Identity. Co-supervisiors: Prof.dr. Valerie Frissen (Faculty of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Prof. dr. Joost Raessens (Faculty of Humanities, University Utrecht). PhF defense: 16-11-2010.

PhD committee:
Prof.dr. J. Jansz (Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Prof.dr. J. Katz (Department of Communication, Rutgers University, USA)
Dr. S. Aupers (Centre for Rotterdam Cultural Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Complete text dissertation (English)

English summary: Moving Circles: Mobile Technologies and Playful Identities
Mobile media technologies have a tremendous influence on how we communicate with each other, relate to the world, and understand ourselves. Medium specific properties and user practices challenge the idea that the narrative is the privileged mediation of identity. Moving Circles explores how the notion of play sheds new light on the ways mobile media shape identity. This occurs on four levels: we play on the mobile, with the mobile, through the mobile, and we are played by the mobile. Mobile technologies bring new freedom of movement. Yet at the same time they constrict us. In this dialectic we become moving circles.