Summary of reading: New Philosophy for New Media

A brief summary of Mark Hansens book: New Philosophy For New Media

I thought this related to some of the questions I have surrounding selfies, so I believed it necessary to look at parts of this book for my research.

In Hansen’s book New Philosophy for New Media (2004), Hansen claims that digital media has altered the way we perceive. He goes on to argue, that “it is no longer a visual event but an affective event of the body” (2004, p19). Hansen engages with Bergon’s theory of perception and examines the idea of the body, which he refers to as: “a center of indetermination within an acentered universe” (2004, p98). As a result, Hansen stresses that the digital image incorporates a full procedure, by which information is made understandable through embodied experience.

Hansen looks at the idea of the body, as being positioned in a privileged position. For example, he makes the connection of the body as being “an agent that filters information in order to create images” (2004, p28). Additionally, he examines ideas of ‘technological transcendence’ and the essentialness of the human body in the digital era. Hansen also believes that we are undertaking a pattern shift in visual culture: “a shift from a dominant ocularcentrist aesthetic to a haptic aesthetic rooted in embodied affectivity” (2004, p11)

Hansen aims to establish the idea that new media artists “have focused on fore-grounding the foundation of vision in modalities of bodily sense” (2004, p12) Hansen’s argument suggests that the study of the mind in relation to beauty has progressed from a normal level of concern, to a now experimental one; his overall argument highlights a shift in aesthetic experience. Hansen notes that, users actively go into new media however, users also create the image: “it is a process which takes place within the user's body…we must accept that the image, rather than finding instantiation in a privileged technical form (including the computer interface), now demarcates the very process through which the body, in conjunction with the various apparatuses for rendering information perceptible, gives form to or in-forms information; In sum, the image can no longer be restricted to the level of surface appearance, but must be extended to encompass the entire process by which information is made perceivable through embodied experience” (2004, p9).  

Bibliography 

Hansen, M (2004). New Philosophy For New Media. United States Of America: Adobe Garamond and Rotis. P9-120.