Living with Computing: Postphenomenological Studies

Abstract

Contemporary digital technologies are transforming everything from the ways we engage in political discussion, to the ways we wear our clothing, to the ways we exist in city spaces, to the ways we find love. In this panel we explore all of these topics, and draw out their implications through the use of ideas from the postphenomenological school of thought. With its focus on technological materiality and human-technology relations, notions from postphenomenology prove useful for analyzing and critiquing the ways that digital technologies shape so many aspects of modern life. In our first paper, Olya Kudina and Bas de Boer explore the possible effects of cutting-edge AI on the issue of online political rhetoric, with implications for everything from chatbot design to online journalism. Nicola Liberati uses postphenomenology to investigate the ways smart textiles mediate human relationships and emotions, exploring their role in techno-imaginaries in China. Our third paper takes a look at the aesthetics of the city, as Sanna Lehtinen & Delfina Fantini van Ditmar consider how emerging 5G connectivity is reshaping urban life and politics. And Ciano Aydin brings in Lacanian psychoanalysis to explore the ways persuasive technologies influence our behaviors, with a detour through the case of the Tinder dating app.

Individual Presentations

• GPT-3 and the Technological Mediation of Political Language - Olga Kudina, University of Twente (the Netherlands); Bas de de Boer, University of Twente (the Netherlands)

• 5G Aesthetics: Hidden in Plain Sight - Sanna Lehtinen, Aalto University; Delfina Fantini van Ditmar, Royal College of Art

• Technology, Desire and Tinder - Ciano Aydin, University of Twente (the Netherlands)

Session Organizer

• Robert Rosenberger, Georgia Institute of Technology