필립 딕의 키치 세상: 『안드로이드들은 전기 양을 꿈꾸는가?』를 통해 본 인간, 기계, 그리고 과학소설

Abstract

This paper aims to study Philip K. Dick's well-known science fiction Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in terms of kitsch. Originally, this study derived from two different research interests: one in the aesthetic achievements of Dick's novel as a popular genre of science fiction, the other in a theme of the relationship between man and machine in the novel. Dick's ‘kitsch world’ is the phrase designed to encompass those two interests with the extended concepts and categories of kitsch and, at the same time, to epitomize the future world that Dick prophets in his work. Defining Dick as a writer of kitsch world, this paper starts with introducing many-layered concepts of kitsch, such as imitations, things of kitsch, the subjective attitudes of viewers, the artificial environments of mechanical objects, and kitsch as an art style. Then it goes on to specific elaborations on a variety of kitsch styles that mark Dick's science fiction as an artifice of popular genre. Finally, the third section of this paper deals with Dick's critique of humanist individual subject, tracing how Rick Deckard's changing views of androids lead to a vision of the posthuman that man and androids commiserate and shape one another's existence. By so doing, this paper argues, Dick shows the future of kitsch world in which a technological object can become a subject and thus interact with man.