This article provides the existential and phenomenological conditions for addiction by applying the concepts of lack, escape and ‘hypervirtuality’ in new ways to the subject matter. There are five sections. The first is a brief review of some of the most relevant literature. The second lists the main general characteristics of addiction, gleaned from the literature, as well as discussing a possible general definition, namely wants that have become (damaging) needs. The third provides the existential conditions required for addiction (...) to be understood as a human phenomenon to which we are all susceptible, albeit to greatly differing degrees and objects. Here I stress the ideas of transcendence, desire, lack and escape one finds in the early writings of Sartre and Levinas. The fourth fills this idea out with a key phenomenological notion of hypervirtuality, inspired by Husserl. This latter, fifthly and finally, explains the rising power of new technologies and how many are increasing and providing new opportunities for addictive behaviour. (shrink)

Demonstrating how radical political transformation might be facilitated from within the much maligned aesthetic category of realism, the author examines a number of contemporary works from Big Brother, Melancholia, catfish, and This is Not a Film to Alize Shvarts' "abortion art." Her discussion of these pieces suggests new understandings of the role of trope l'oeil in illusion, the rendering of realism's limitations, and relationships between hypervirtuality and simulation. The author's core project throughout is to develop a framework for thinking (...) about contemporary forms of realism which, rather than focusing on the importance of seeing beyond deceptions that distort reality, argues that reality lies within the deceptions themselves. (shrink)