Bent Fausing SOULFUL TECHNOLOGY Everyday Aesthetics in New Media “The stammering (of the motoror of the subject) is, in short, a fear: I am afraidthe motor is going to stop.”1 The soul in the digital machineryIn 2008, Samsung introduced a mobile phone called "Soul" made with a human touch andincluding itself a “magic touch”. Through the analysis of a Nokia mobile phone TV-commercials I want to examine the function and form of digital technology in everyday images. The mobile phone and its digital camera and other devices are depicted by everydayaesthetics as capable of producing a unique human presence and interaction. The medium, the technology is a necess ar y helper of this very special and lost humani ty. Without the technolog y, no spe cial humani ty, no sou l - suc h is the pr oph ecy. Thi s per son ifi cat ion oranthropomorphism is important for the branding of new technology. Technology is seen as creating a techno-transcendence towards a more qualified humanity which is in contact with fundamental human values like intuition, vision, and sensing; all the qualities that technology, industrialization, and rationalization, - in short modernity – have taken away from human exi ste nce . Wha t old tec hno log y has removed now comes bac k thr oug h new tec hnolog ypromoting a better humanity. The present article investigates how digital technology and affects are presented andcombined, with exampl es fr om ever yday imag ery, e. g. TV commerci al s and internetcommercials for mobile phones from Nokia, or handheld computers, as Sony-Ericsson prefers to call them. Digital technology points towards a forgotten pre-human and not only post- human condition. The media as a promoter of a special kind of humanityThe sight is connected to physical and mental circumstan ces rather than being an isola ted sense in itself. The body is the basis and the frame from which we perceive things. Images exist in and via the perceiving body’s reactions. It is the affective body which creates the final image. Affect is inextricably bound up with imagery. The unframed, formless, and bodily empty digital data are made somatic and sensual through meeting and decoding. The technology is a mediator for the creation of the experience. 1 1
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Bent Fausing Soulful Technologies. Everyday Aesthetics and Visuality in New Media
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8/14/2019 Bent Fausing Soulful Technologies. Everyday Aesthetics and Visuality in New Media