Contributed By: Julian C. Bleecker
Published On: Sep 1, 2004, 05:00:00 PDT
Updated On: Jun 28, 2026, 05:00:00 PDT
The Reality Effect of Technoscience studies how technology-based popular culture artifacts become socially, politically, and culturally real. The dissertation focuses on virtual reality, film-based special effects in Jurassic Park, and the simulation game SimCity2000 as cases where science fact, science fiction, visual culture, institutions, software, audiences, and technical practices help produce a shared sense of reality.
This is the official author-maintained page for my dissertation. The PDF is free to read and download here. If you are looking for “Julian Bleecker dissertation,” “The Reality Effect of Technoscience PDF,” or the UC Santa Cruz History of Consciousness dissertation chaired by Donna Haraway, this is the direct source.
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The Reality Effect of Technoscience investigates the cultural, social, and political meaning of three technology-based popular culture artifacts: virtual reality technology, film-based special effects as seen in Jurassic Park, and the simulation game SimCity2000. The dissertation treats these artifacts as cases through which computer-based visual representation, science fiction, science fact, institutional practice, and popular culture help determine what feels real, credible, and consequential.
The dissertation’s central concern is the process by which a technoscientific artifact gains a tangible social reality through the actions of many human and non-human agents: laboratories, software, institutions, films, games, audiences, researchers, trade publications, cultural narratives, and technical systems. In that sense, the “reality effect” is neither only technical nor only representational. It is produced through the social work that makes an artifact matter.
Julian Bleecker dissertation, The Reality Effect of Technoscience, History of Consciousness, University of California Santa Cruz, Donna Haraway, technoscience, virtual reality, Jurassic Park, special effects, SimCity2000, simulation games, science fiction, visual culture, technology studies.
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