Smartphones as digital teddy bears offer incredible connectivity and access to information but introduce elements that may contribute to a derealization of corporeality by altering how individuals perceive, interact with, and present their physical selves in the digital realm. The challenge is to find a balance that acknowledges the benefits of digital connectivity while preserving…
It’s funny because I’d been working on my duck face all summer only to encounter Han and get told that my engagement with an informaton turns my countenance in a non-thing that is information, or a digital illusion. But so what? If we must abide a terrestrial order, why can’t our lives be optimized to…
Han reflects on communal disruption in the wake of and addiction to digitalization from different perspectives, one of which is the role of corporeality in the conceptualization of community. The term “digital community” has redefined the directionality of human relationships. It reinforces the paradigm shift in human values, including freedom (p. 10), possession vis-à-vis access…
We are the product of ancient philia, oriented to a discipline because of a certain affection, held lightly or tightly. We are brought together in communities because of habitus, destined paths we cannot circumvent. I’d argue that the draw to rhetoric, the most ancient of all habitus, is a special call indeed. So how does…
Han (2022) says that analogue photographs are things because we take great care in keeping them safe. Sure, analogue, printed photos of a Kodak camera are probably kept in an album. As did my mom. She used to have a polaroid camera and it produced a couple of hundreds of “still” photos. I can see…
Han (2022) describes the future digital community formation as phono sapiens. Han’s use of phono sapiens demonstrates how most individuals are constantly engrossed in the digital sphere and neglect to engage with others or pay attention to what is truly going on in the site-based community. The shift from a site-based world to a digital…
This past weekend, I knelt on the concrete pad outside the back door of my house, contemplating the apotropaic gaping face of the outdoor outlet, burned beyond reconciliation by a combination of faulty cordage and bad decisions from a prior resident of this lore-heavy property. The context of this agamic, unavailing stare-off was the reel…
I’ve been thinking about how the deeply sited nature of diaspora translates into digital spaces that collapse time, space, and embodiment—elements whose intersection manifest as “site,” a concept Han suggests is the antithesis of hyperculture. But I’ve also been thinking about who might guide us through “de-distanced” landscapes, enacting Walter Mignolo’s decolonial concept of “pluriversality,”…
During our opening class meeting, August 21, everyone created a list of five sites or platforms associated principally with the phrase “in digital environments.” Time runs out, so we didn’t have much opportunity to talk about the environments, specifically, nor generally, but I returned to them today, Tuesday, with the goal of sorting them and…
Face surveillance is the probably most dangerous of the many new technologies that are available to police. It goes without saying how terrifying it can be towards communities of color, especially Black Community. Algorithms can be racist. Apple’s Iphone is a prime example of that. Some facial recognition algorithms misclassified the facial features of at…