Spheres of action. The technological shift of control

Interacting with Computers, 2012

2008

Abstract The chapter presents a conceptual framework that links the enaction of our intentions to the understanding of other people's intentions through the concept of “Presence”, the feeling of being and acting in a world outside us. Specifically the chapter suggests that humans develop intentionality and Self by prereflexively evaluating agency in relation to the constraints imposed by the environment (Presence): they are “present” if they are able to enact in an external world their intentions.

… (HOIT2003), The Center for Research on …, 2003

Proposals for a conversation Transformations regarding the issue of absence / presence, now a common concern on the contemporary stage, have their possible antecedents in the sociocul-tural turn occurring during the twentieth century, with global effects. The emergence of new media alters the positioning of the subject and his or her perception as an individual and social member of a collectivity, bringing about shifts in aesthetic perception, both for those who see a production as for those who produce it. Thus, nowadays, one experiences a reversal of roles: the spectator has become increasingly active, becoming part of the work, and being able to transform it. If the spectator is increasingly present in the game the artist proposes, the latter has sought by his absence his own mode of acting. The manipulation/use/production of technological devices offers multiple games, or forms of play that can give rise to ludic experiences or suggest other issues not yet experienced. The incor...

2013

“The whole tendency of modern communication whether in the press, in advertising or in the high arts is towards participation in a process, rather than the apprehension of concepts. And this major revolution, intimately linked to technology, is one whose consequences have not begun to be studied although they have begun to be felt." Recalling McLuhan’s words, this paper is an attempt to study the effects and consequences of technology and how it allowed performance artists greater flexibility in experimenting with space, time and representation, engaging in a social and institutional critique. The pertinent questions here are: how are performance artists reflecting upon our social and political structures today, and what would the role of technology be in such critique? If performance art, which is a time-based art that emphasizes interaction between artist and audience, is still concerned with keeping ‘art’ close to people, it will need to take into account the new spaces and times engendered by technology. Furthermore, it will need to devise its own space and time, fashioning its own modes engagement and perception, by questioning how the artist can still be present today in a world where we interact with screens more than people, where we broadcast our lives instead of living them.

The paper traces many mental phenomena to vocal aspects of sensorimotor empathy (Chemero, 2016). It is argued that synergies not only contribute to action but also to presence and, more strangely, how a sense of presence serves in dealing with others. In support of the view, we offer three contrasting cases. First, we discuss imagining a voice on receiving a text. Not only are such reports common but, as described, it marks a change in attitude or, precisely, the trajectory of the texting. Next we defend the claim that presence is grounded in sensorimotor empathy. Accordingly, we appeal to concerted movement in our second example. We sketch how staff use a sense of presence to reposition themselves around a hospital bed. Since no imagining is required, this is likely to be synergetic. Pursuing the argument, the third case pursues details in family conversation. Using acoustic evidence from 750 ms, we trace the particular sense of a wording (" ah bene ") to the energetics of intermeshing voices. Finally, we claim that the evidence supports, not extended mind, but, rather, what we call a systemic view of cognition. When people participate in extended cognitive systems, they do not act/perceive as organisms (or predictive brains). Rather, as human agents, they also draw on dispositions that result from a history of using both things (material engagement) and synergies that grant a sense of presence, and sensorimotor empathy. Skills in using social and solo presence enable persons to individuate and display as living human subjects. 1.0 Introducing presence Turning from neuro-centric views and theories based on a concept of mind, we pursue how voices and voicing contribute to human agency. In so doing, we adopt Chemero's (2009) methodological principle that all human powers derive from body-world interactions. The radical embodied perspective opens up how voices influence actions as people draw on presence and the sense of presence. As the epigraph suggests, when people exude presence, they feel open and vulnerable (Merleau-Ponty, 1973). Consequently, what happens is influenced by sensorimotor experience (e.g. in conversing). Cultural products evoke a 'system of relations' (ibid.) that affect what those concerned are likely to do, think and feel. In experience of coordination, they link 'what is present and what is absent' (Deacon, 2012: 506). Voices enable human agents to manage presence by bringing social coordination together with material engagement (Malafouris, 2013). The experienced world connects bodies, brains and things through a meshwork of linguistic practices. In linking the material with the routine, human agency becomes spatially and temporally multi-scalar. A person's cognitive powers derive from a history of social coordination. Given sensitivity to voices, hands and faces, experience ensures that events are shaped by a sense of presence. As people coordinate, they are constrained by affect, articulation and, above all, changing perceptions of other persons. Through presence, acting-in-the world is affected by relationships, language-activity and, in slow scales, what persons and groups become. In presenting the view around case studies, we begin with a media-enriched setting where texting re-evokes experience. We then sketch what Goffman (1963) calls 'co-presence' to trace the powers to talk in interaction. Next, we turn up the microscope to show how unthought judgements shape lived relationships. By implication, powers often ascribed to cognition use what Chemero (2016) calls sensorimotor empathy. People use bodily and vocal interplay to re-enact a collective order. We conclude by linking our observations to work on cognitive systems, extended mind, and a systemic view of cognition.

Time & Society

Screen time once referred to television. Nowadays, it includes various screen sizes that are internet-enabled devices, and the pervasive smartphone. Regardless of what kind of screen is used, screen time comprises much of life itself. Being online and offline is now fairly blurred because of the ubiquitousness of technologies, Wi-Fi and screens. This paper puts forth the notion of ‘temporal digital control’ to explain the choice of when and why smartphones and other portable digital devices are used in today’s cultural milieu, and it theorizes the ‘why’ of contemporary smartphone use is so prominent suggesting it enables temporal digital control in an autonomous space. Coupled with the engrossment of such use, the article elaborates how gazing at a digital device comprises a temporal connection, alongside a disconnection from real life, and a possible inauthenticity that could affect well-being. Recently published literature on ‘waiting’ is included to help theorize why actors choos...

The term "medium" is characterised by a fundamental double meaning: On the one hand, it refers to an apparatus or an instrumentally useful object through which something else is mediated by making it perceptible or manageable; on the other hand, mediality also consists in a non-objectified dimension of mediation that is actively involved in every practice. This paper employs the exemplary case of visual perception to develop this ambiguity of media in which (milieu-like) and through which (tool-like, instrumentally) self and world relations take place. For example, one can make use of one's eyes as a useful means of recognising something other. At the same time, however, seeing is the selective and socially learnt practice of mediating the self and the world.

Proceedings of the 2nd international workshop on Socially-aware multimedia - SAM '13, 2013

Effective design of shared mediated spaces, information and connectedness requires theory and practice from a range of disciplines such as found in European projects like Together Anywhere, Together Anytime (TA2) and the EIT ICT Labs Mediating Presence activity. Building on this work we continue to investigate the changes in the European digital media industry such as changed traditional distribution of media content and the progressive integration of (social) communication means in information distribution and shared mediated spaces. Our past research has given valuable insights in how to design and evaluate systems and services that provide a high quality of experience, in how trust is established in mediated environments, and how the formation of tacit communication between participants in new distributed and connected media is negotiated. In the new Seventh Framework Program project COnnected Media and Presence from European Institute of Technology (COMPEIT) we aim to enhance the quality of experience in face-to-face and broadcast communication further in three domains: 1) Spatial connectedness, 2) Social connectedness and 3) Information connectedness, by developing three key services: Shared Experience with Tangible Interaction (SETI); Broadcast Presence Studio (BPS) and Mixed-Reality Interaction (MRI). The quality of experience of these services will be enhanced in terms of for example: spatial connectedness, by providing shared spaces and supporting spatial features such as eye contact; social connectedness, by using natural means for interaction suiting different settings and activities; and information connectedness, by providing better means to share, manipulate and use information suiting different task or activities. In this paper we will discuss the background of this work and give an overview of our planned future work in COMPEIT.