Sociable Media

Phatic Connection in Digital Art

Bibliographic Data

ID16714708
AuthorsJames J Hodge (corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume26
Issue1
Publication date2015-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePostmodern Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1053-1920 • E-ISSN: 1053-1920
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/pmc.2015.0021
OpenAlexW2521827291
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited12

This essay argues for the impersonally social character of phatic communication in the context of contemporary networked media culture. Georg Simmel's theorization of sociability as a playfully impersonal mode of social being prior to difference provides the basis for a discussion of the pleasures of phatic communication in digital media in terms of connection not with persons but with the network itself. This pleasure has two distinct poles of experience: being and relating. The latter portion of the essay examines this distinction through the analysis of two digital artworks, Frances Stark's My Best Thing and David OReilly's Mountain

Aesthetics · Art · Character (mathematics · Connection (principal bundle · Context (archaeology · Digital media · Media studies · Mode (computer interface · Pleasure · Political science · Sociology · Cinema and Media Studies · Computer Science · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · Digital Games and Media · History · Law · Mathematics · Psychology

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