Science fictional: the aesthetics of science fiction beyond the limits of genre

Abstract

Science Fictional: The Aesthetics of SF Beyond the Limits of Genre proposes that contemporary culture is a spatial experience dominated by an aesthetic of science fiction and its quasi-generic form, the ‘science fictional’. The study explores the connective lines between cultural objects such as film, video art, painting, illustration, advertising, music, and children’s television in a variety of mediums and media coupled with research that conflates aspects of critical theory, art history and cultural studies into a unique discourse. The study argues that three types of cultural effects – reverberation, density and resonance – affect cultural space altering and changing the interpretation and influence of a cultural object. Through an account of the nature of the science fictional, this thesis argues that science fiction as we understand it, and how it has been conventionally conceived, is in fact the counter of its apparent function within wider culture. While terms such as “genre” and “mainstream” suggest a binary of centre and periphery, this thesis demonstrates that the quasi-generic is in fact the dominant partner in the process of cultural production.