Technoperformances

Using metaphors from the performance arts for a postphenomenology and posthermeneutics of technology use

Bibliographic Data

ID20396646
AuthorsMark Coeckelbergh (0000-0001-9576-1002, University of Vienna, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume35
Issue3
Pages557-568
Publication date2020-09-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAI & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0951-5666 • E-ISSN: 1435-5655
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s00146-019-00926-7
OpenAlexW2997219810
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited16

Postphenomenology and posthermeneutics as initiated by Ihde have made important contributions to conceptualizing understanding human–technology relations. However, their focus on individual perception, artifacts, and static embodiment has its limitations when it comes to understanding the embodied use of technology as (1) involving bodily movement, (2) social, and (3) taking place within, and configuring, a temporal horizon. To account for these dimensions of experience, action, and existence with technology, this paper proposes to use a conceptual framework based on performance metaphors. Drawing on metaphors from three performance arts—dance, theatre, and music—and giving examples from social media and other technologies, it is shown that we can helpfully describe technology use and experience as performance involving movement, sociality, and temporality. Moreover, it is argued that these metaphors can also be used to reformulate the idea that in such uses and experiences, now understood as “technoperformances”, technology is not merely a tool but also takes on a stronger, often non-intended role: not so much as “mediator” but as choreographer, director, and conductor of what we experience and do. Performance metaphors thus allow us to recast the phenomenology and hermeneutics of technology use as moving, social, and temporal—indeed historical—affair in which technologies take on the role of organizer and structurer of our performances, and in which humans are not necessarily the ones who are fully in control of the meanings, experiences, and actions that emerge from our engagement with the world, with technology, and with each other. This promises to give us a more comprehensive view of what it means to live with technology and how our lives are increasingly organized by technology—especially by smart technologies. Finally, it is argued that this has normative implications for an ethics and politics of technology, now understood as an ethics and politics of technoperformances

Aesthetics · Art · Cognitive science · Dance · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Perception · Performing arts · Sociology · Temporality · The arts · Visual arts · Cybernetics and Technology in Society · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction · Psychology

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