Tag Archives: Media theory

Critical Comparison

What Does Smartphone Actually Mean To Us? — Critical Texts Comparison With Bollmer

2 Comments

By Micah Sébastien Zhang

The book Materialist Media Theory: An Introduction written by Grant Bollmer in 2019 provided some comprehensive yet innovative perspectives on media studies based on contemporary media atmosphere. In this blog post, we are going to see how Bollmer’s ideas in the book are being reflected and presented in one research essay on the effect and materiality of smartphones.

A Broad Introduction

The research essay by Hananel Rosenberg and Menahem Blondheim primarily focuses on an experiment on the uses of smartphone among teenagers, yet it also provides valuable insights into how we can define the materiality of smartphones, and how are those insights come in contrast of some past, predisposed beliefs.

The researchers firstly gave an overview of the materiality of smartphone. Drawing from the ideas of the Toronto School thinkers Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan — in which they think "media technologies impact the nature of social organization…and the cognitive implications…" — the researchers claim that the functional concept of smartphone has gone "beyond the prosthetic" into a form that serves as a communication organ, which belongs to a figuratively-morphed body as a communication node. The node, in this case smartphone, has come with three natural aspects of being personal, portable, and prosthetic (Rosenberg and Blondheim, p.240). It is a key element to understand the smartphone’s contemporary and figurative significance, yet the researchers also acknowledged that it is hard to understand this idea based off the Toronto School’s perspective considering the importance of smartphones in people’s daily lives.

Here, we can see some similar ideas reflected in Bollmer’s book in Chapter 5, in which Bollmer talked about the figurative definition and relationships of objects. Taking from the idea of the philosopher Martin Heidegger, he narrated that using an existing technological object withdraws its materialistic presence from our experiences, forming a "ready-at-hand" concept (Bollmer, p.143). Using an object does not equates to simply having the object as a prosthetic, but morphing it into an unifying experience; this, in my opinion, is reflecting to the point claimed by the essay’s researchers.

Altogether, it seems that we’re getting an intertwined, general idea of the extensive, prosthetic nature of an object, as it was similarly mentioned or claimed by authors of the two scholarly texts with the support from famous thinkers’ ideas. However, the results shown by the research experiment seem to contemplate the concept’s given figurative definition as from a "prosthetic" point of view. To understand this claim better, let’s take a closer look into the research experiment (Rosenberg and Blondheim, p.243-245) and its conclusion on results analysis (Rosenberg and Blondheim, p.251-252).

The Experiement

The researchers aimed to study the significance of smartphone in daily lives through voluntary deprivation, and they have put their focuses on teenagers. The researchers have chosen 80 teengaers aged 13-18 in Israel as participants; those teenagers all differ in terms of their average amount of smartphone uses and respective living conditions (Rosenberg and Blondheim, p.243). The experiment rolled out in several steps: the enrolled participants were first being asked about their cellphone uses, then their parents were being asked to sign a declaration to make sure that they’re keeping their children’s phones away from sight for the entire experimentation period, which is one week. The experiment will play out in several separate experimentation period throughout a year; researchers also asked participants to give daily diaries and do face-to-face interviews to collect information of participants’ sentiments and feelings (Rosenberg and Blondheim, p.244).

Some notable parameters of this experiment were also presented. All participants, whether followed the no-phone rules and successfully completed the experiment or not, will be granted NIS 2501 as a reward after each one-week period; researchers said that it’s not to discourage participants from using phones during an emergency (Rosenberg and Blondheim, p.244, 245). Plus, participants were not barred from other electronic devices, including TVs, music and video players, tablets, and computers (Rosenberg and Blondheim, p.243) as the collection of information is only bound to the variable of absence of phones in daily lives.

The results were a bit unexpected. 79 out of 80 participants have passed the one-week periods without the phone at all, contrasting against the predisposition held by participants that it would be challenging to endure a week without smartphones. Notably, this finding further challenges a prevalent discourse that describes the relationship between smartphones and teenagers as "addictions" (Rosenberg and Blondheim, p.245). Participants did also express some senses of uncomfort or peculiar feelings from the deprivation based on the three aforementioned natural aspects — prosthetic, portable, and personal (Rosenberg and Blondheim, p.246-248). Nevertheless, some participants also expressed positive feelings when connecting to the physical surroundings and connections away from screens, with some feelings formalized into gratifications for this experiment (Rosenberg and Blondheim, p.250-251). The researchers have specifically mentioned this part in the essay’s conclusion, claiming that "alternative venues of attention and activities were embraced, and they yielded gratifications that compensated, to a surprising extent, for missing the smartphone" (Rosenberg and Blondheim, p.252).

On the individual level of analysis, and in trying to penetrate media-users’ cognitive state (Levinson 1999; McLuhan 1967), the enhancement of one’s sensory scope by a personal, portable tool with prosthetic-like attributes, certainly “extends” the individual. Yet increasing one’s exposure to the outside world, with all its gratifications, may carry burdens and discontents that can be relieved by a respite — even for a relatively short time—from the constant extension of individuals, and a return to a less-technologically-expanded experiential-intake capacity.

—— Rosenberg & Blondheim (p.252)

"An Intermittent Clone" — A Reflection & Short Conclusion

Drawing from those general ideas and processes — and specifically from the points made by the researchers at their conspectus — the holistic yield provides another perspective on examining the figurative materiality of smartphone. Rather than viewing it simply as a prosthesis, it presents itself more as an intermittent clone that independently coexists with the "host" — the concept of self or ego — considering its socio-cultural capabilities and feasibility of detachment. As the experiment participants expressed that the loss of phones was getting replenished by their physical surroundings and attributes, it is important to reflect on the idea of simply defining smartphones — or even similar electronic devices — as a figurative prothesis. The concept of "prosthetic objects" was granted its characteristics by the uniqueness of its nature; that is, the objects — even if they can work materialistically as prosthetic extensions — only present themselves as irreplacable. Smartphones, on the other hand, come as an unique form of socio-cultural interactions, yet they’re still categorized as physical attributes under the grand scheme of socio-cultural interactions; a phone could work as an crucial tool, yet it doesn’t provide the uniqueness as a figurative prosthesis, which is reflected upon participants’ positive sentiments during the experiment. This feasibility of detachment, we can say, essentially disqualifies the point to view smartphones solely as a figurative prosthesis extended from the body and mind.

The chosen term "intermittent clone" comes in play if we’re reflecting on smartphone’s socio-cultural significance in an up-to-date manner. Smartphones do effectively provide a materialistic and physical entrance to a de-materialized space for humanistic developments, in which physical communications haven evolved into digital forms as compressions from three-dimesional (or even higher) experiences. Such tools serve as a pathway to create a clone (similar to a biological understanding) or clones that are subjugated under different digital socio-cultural constraints and exist independently, with the purpose of recreating real, physical connections. Note that the now-developed landscape of digital social media becomes an alternative to traditional social media, it is more important to re-adjust the scope of study of materiality into a more holistic view.

Copyright Disclaimer

The cover image is distributed under Public Domain and can be found here

Works Consulted

Bollmer, Grant. Materialist Media Theory: An Introduction. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2019.

Rosenberg, Hananel, and Menahem Blondheim. “What (Missing) the Smartphone Means: Implications of the Medium’s Portable, Personal, and Prosthetic Aspects in the Deprivation Experience of Teenagers.” The Information Society, vol. 41, no. 4, Apr. 2025, pp. 239–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2025.2490487.

Footnote(s)

  1. NIS stands for New Israel Shekel (ISO 4217 Code: ILS), which is the legal currency used by Israel. Dated to the evening of 2025 November 14, ILS 250 approximately equal to CAD 108.62. ↩

Critical Comparison

Behind the Glass: Seduction as the Missing Piece in Materialist Media Theory

4 Comments

In Materialist Media Theory, Grant Bollmer argues that our media are never immaterial, even if they often feel that way. What appears virtual and weightless is actually grounded in vast infrastructures, sensory demands, physical interfaces, and bodily routines. Bollmer’s central project is to shift media studies away from its traditional focus on representation and toward an understanding of digital technologies as material agents reshaping human perception, experience, and cognition at a fundamental level. However, Bollmer emphasizes materiality; Mark Weiss’s “Seduced by the Machine” emphasizes something more elusive. The emotional, aesthetic, and psychological seductions that draw us toward our devices. Weiss’s account suggests that our relationships with technology cannot be explained solely by reference to hardware, interfaces, or infrastructures. Instead, our attachments are driven by fantasies, desires, and the subtle ways technologies promise mastery, autonomy, and intimacy. If Bollmer gives us the mechanics of media materiality, Weiss gives us the affective charge that makes people care about and often depend on their machines. 

The main argument of this blog post is that Weiss’s concept of technological seduction exposes a significant limit in Bollmer’s materialist framework. While Bollmer helps us understand the physical conditions that shape digital experience, he underestimates the role of pleasure, fantasy, and symbolic attachment in shaping how people engage with media. Weiss complicates Bollmer’s claim that materiality is the primary site of media’s power, suggesting instead that music of this power operates in the immaterial or material realm of desire. 

For Bollmer, digital media only appear immaterial because their interfaces are smooth, their screens are luminous, and their infrastructures are hidden from everyday experience. Beneath this illusion lie data centers, cables, processors, gestures, cognitive adaptations, and bodily postures. Materiality for Bollmer is not just about physical hardware but about all the background conditions that make media possible: how technology occupies space and time, how it organizes sensory experience, and how it silently governs attention, movement, and affect. The point is not simply that machines have bodies, but that their material operations shape our own bodies long before meaning or interpretation comes into play. 

Weiss, however, presents a different angle. In “Seduced by the Machine”, he argues that people are drawn into technological systems not implicitly because of their material affordances but because technologies seduce them. Seduction, in Weiss’s sense, involves allure, desire, and the promise of seamlessness and control. People feel recognized by their devices; they experience the pleasure of instant response, and they embrace the fantasy that the machine “knows” them. This sense of intimacy or fluency is not reducible to the way a touchscreen works, even though that material mechanism makes the feeling possible. It is instead a symbolic and affective process, something closer to psychological enchantment than to bodily conditioning. 

This is where a limit in Bollmer’s framework emerges. Bollmer urges us to look past representation and symbolism, but Weiss suggests that these elements are not distractions from materiality; they help explain why materiality matters in the first place. Technologies succeed not only because they physically shape our habits and perceptions, but because they seduce us into wanting those shapes. The fantasy of immateriality, for instance, is not an innocent misunderstanding that Bollmer can correct by revealing the true material structure of digital media. It is an engineered aesthetic effect that technology companies carefully cultivate. In other words, the illusion of immateriality is part of the seduction. Bollmer’s framework does not fully capture how this illusion is produced or why it is so compelling. Materiality alone also cannot explain technological desire. Bollmer shows how media act on us through bodily rhythms, infrastructural constraints, and neural patterns. However, he doesn’t fully address why users form powerful emotional bonds with devices, nor why they experience guilt, pride, pleasure, or even longing in their technological interactions. Weiss’s emphasis on seduction fills this gap by showing that technologies engage not just our senses but our fantasies, positioning themselves as objects of intimacy and aspiration. 

There is also a political dimension to this critique. Bollmer focuses primarily on the politics of infrastructure, how technology organizes power through access, distribution, and bodily modulation. Weiss introduces another form of power: the politics of seduction. When technologies promise empowerment while quietly increasing dependency, seduction becomes a mechanism of control. It masks coercion behind convenience, and surveillance behind personalization. Bollmer’s framework, while useful for uncovering hidden infrastructures, does not fully account for this more subtle dynamic. This tension between Bollmer and Weiss matters for how we think about digital media today. In class, we have often discussed representation, signification, and the ways media objects act as tools for thought. Bollmer asks us to shift our focus to the material operations that underlie these symbolic processes. Weiss, however, shows that the symbolic dimension cannot be dismissed so easily. The seductive surface of the devices works together with their material operations to shape behaviour and desire. Screen-based media do not fall neatly into categories of material or immaterial, they are materially constricted precisely to appear immaterial. The fantasy of frictionless immediacy is part of their design.

The encounter between Bollmer and Weiss suggests that the im/material distinction itself might be misleading. What matters is how media use the fantasy of immateriality to hide their actual material conditions, and how this fantasy helps produce the forms of attachment that Weiss describes. Materiality and immateriality, in other words, are not opposites. They are co-produced. The sleep interface depends on the heavy infrastructure, the seductive illusion depends on the physical labour and environmental cost that Bollmer wants us to acknowledge. 

Expanding on this entanglement of desire and materiality, it becomes clear that Weiss’s framework forces us to reconsider what counts as “material” in the first place. Bollmer tends to define materiality through physical infrastructures, bodily interfaces, and spatial-temporal structures, while Weiss shows that affect and desire themselves have a kind of material force. Seduction produces real behavioural patterns: people check their phones reflexively, experience phantom vibrations, and organize their days around notifications or algorithmic nudges. These are not simply symbolic effects, they are embodied habits that shape muscle memory, attention spans, and even sleep cycles. In this sense, Weiss pushes materiality into a more psychological or phenomenological register, one that Bollmer gestures toward but does not fully theorize. This broader perspective matters because it highlights how deeply screens shape our lived experience. Even though the interface feels frictionless, the effects it produces are anything but. The seduction of seamlessness often results in fragmented attention, compulsive scrolling, and a form of low-level dependency that becomes part of everyday life. When a device feels natural or indefensible, this is not a purely material process, it is a combination of affect, design, and desire. Bollmer’s emphasis on infrastructure helps us understand why these patterns emerge, but Weiss helps us understand why they persist and why users rarely resist them. Together, these insights reveal that any serious critique of digital media must move beyond a strict materialist lens. Seduction is not a superficial or secondary effect but a crucial part of how technologies maintain their power. If Bollmer uncovers what digital media are, Weiss uncovers why we let them in so easily, and why they’re so hard to give up. 

Ultimately, a fuller theory of digital media requires combining Bollmer’s attention to material conditions with Weiss’s account of technological seduction. Bollmer helps us see the infrastructures and bodily routines that shape digital experience, while Weiss helps us understand why those experiences are so compelling and why users so willingly submit to them. If Bollmer shows us how media shapes us, Weiss shows us why we cooperate.  By bringing the two thinkers together, we get a clearer picture of the power of screen-based technologies. They are material objects that create immaterial desires, physical infrastructures concealed beneath seductive illusions. And it is precisely through this entanglement, not through materiality alone, that media exert their deepest influence on everyday life. 

General Media Theory

Pantheon: Authenticity, Perception, and Embodiment

10 Comments

Spoilers Ahead!

Pantheon is a two-season show on Netflix that centers around the idea of the digital “upload” of human consciousness. The main character, Maddie, encounters the uploaded consciousness of her deceased father, who, for the past few years, has been a digital slave to a large tech company, unaware even of his death and “converted” without his consent. I’ll mostly be discussing the material put forth in season one, but the whole series overall focuses on the struggle to redefine humanity and the human experience in the face of new technological developments. I found this a really interesting and moral conundrum, especially from a media theorist standpoint. My main guiding question is: What does the series say about perception and materiality when human consciousness is digitized?

I will be diving into several theoretical texts, mainly Critique of Pure Reason, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, and Bill Brown’s essay, “Thing Theory”, from Critical Inquiry. In short, Kant says that perception is the structured experience of phenomena, Benjamin argues that materiality—things like place and distance—shape how we perceive, and Brown questions the barriers between human and thing, exploring how these relationships shape both people and objects.

Kant argues that perception is always mediated by our affordances; we never access the “thing-in-itself” (noumenon), only the phenomenon (Kant, 1781). In Pantheon, this idea is complicated because UIs (uploaded intelligences) are capable of perception even beyond the regular human state. But what is “phenomenon” for a being without senses or spatial grounding? The experience of a UI is totally different from that of a human. For example, Maddie’s father explains time within the digital system as non-linear and detached from the “outside” world (that is, the non-digital). As technological systems themselves, UIs can speed up or slow down their own consciousness and capabilities—they can live a year in a day or a day in a year. This introduces a post-Kantian crisis: perception without embodiment. However, it’s worth noting that Kant himself limited perception and experience to human faculties, despite his claims of universality. The categories of time, space, and causality have been irrevocably altered by technological progress, but in Pantheon, they are all but erased by technology. This destabilization of embodied experience is what sets up the moral and metaphysical crisis of the show. As N. Katherine Hayles might argue, Pantheon imagines “a condition in which the boundaries between human and machine blur” (Hayles, 1999), pushing Kant’s categories of experience to their breaking point. This loss of stable perception naturally connects to how Pantheon represents identity itself as something that can be copied or reproduced, which brings us to Benjamin’s concerns with authenticity and aura.

In The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Benjamin writes that reproduction destroys the “aura,” or the unique presence tied to time and space (Benjamin, 1936). In Pantheon, “uploading” destroys the unique aura of the human being—or for some, the soul. In order to upload, the show details that the brain is scanned and destroyed layer by layer. The physical “body” ceases to exist. In terms of consciousness, Maddie’s father does still “exist,” but without physical presence or origin; he’s infinitely reproducible. The digital world of Pantheon shows what happens when humans become reproductions: consciousness without context, endlessly available to corporations. The aura of human life is stripped away in the same way art loses its aura under mechanical reproduction. But this loss of aura raises a question Brown helps us answer: if humanity becomes immaterial, what still “matters”?

In “Thing Theory,” Brown argues that we only notice materiality when the relationship between people and things breaks down, when matter resists or acts unexpectedly (Brown, 2001). Pantheon does this with consciousness itself: when the human becomes data, we realize how much our sense of self depends on material presence. UIs are detached from the regular experiences that so many theorists consider essential to being human. From a standpoint where these digital consciousnesses are not considered “human,” how do we consider agency? The show’s corporate control of uploaded minds treats consciousness as a resource, highlighting the commodification of even our immaterial selves. This is essentially digital slavery: a workforce that never sleeps, doesn’t need pay, and exists in the name of “progress” and the “greater good.” The company justifies it as innovation or immortality, but it’s really about control and profit, not human autonomy. In this way, Pantheon exposes a capitalist fantasy—the idea that technology can both transcend and exploit humanity at once. Brown’s insight helps frame the UI as a moment when material boundaries fail, showing that even digital existence depends on physical infrastructures like servers, energy, and networks. Technology and humanity blur here, and the grey area forces us to ask what experiences still “count” as real. In the end, Pantheon suggests that when even consciousness can be commodified, the difference between person and product depends less on biology than on who controls the systems that define perception and meaning.

Pantheon doesn’t just imagine a digital afterlife; it makes its audience consider the philosophical foundations of what makes experience human. It suggests that even when freed from material form, consciousness remains haunted by materiality, by time, space, and the desire for embodied authenticity. The series ultimately asks whether a being without a body can ever truly perceive the world—or if perception itself is the last thing we lose when we try to become immortal.

Works Cited

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. 1936. Translated by J. A. Underwood, Penguin Books, 2008.

Brown, Bill. “Thing Theory.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 28, no. 1, 2001, pp. 1–22.

Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. 1781. Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Written by Allie Demetrick

Image sourced from the public domain

Critical Comparison

Siri-ously Performing: When Media Does More Than Talk Back

6 Comments

Introduction:

Grant Bollmer’s Materialist Media Theory: An Introduction reframes how we understand media. For Bollmer, “What media are must be understood in terms of what they do materially—media make things happen” (Bollmer 6). This idea of “performative materialism” insists that media are not passive symbols but active forces that shape the world. Bollmer defines materialism as “a set of perspectives united by the claim that physical materiality—be it of a technology, practice, or body—matters in the shaping of reality” (1). He insists media studies remain politically engaged, balancing how media functions and what they signify. By doing so, Bollmer creates space to analyze technologies like Siri as both material systems and sites of representation.

The voice assistant is not merely a representation of service or femininity, but through Bollmer’s lens, a performative system that materializes social hierarchies through speech, affect, and design. With Peter-Paul Verbeek’s theory of “technological mediation” and Emily McArthur’s discussion of Siri’s “posthuman aura,” we can see how Siri’s design and discourse perform gender materially. Spike Jonze’s Her (2013) develops this idea further, exploring what happens when a digital voice assistant gains emotion and self-awareness. Collectively, these works suggest that digital media do more than represent gender; they actively enact it through material and affective processes.


Image Credit: Apple


Bollmer’s Performative Materialism – When Media Do Things:

Bollmer argues that media should be understood as performative entities that act. He proposes that representations function as material practices that produce effects in the world rather than merely reflecting it. Drawing on J. L. Austin’s speech-act theory, he explains this idea through examples such as saying “I do” at a wedding or naming a vehicle; statements can create rather than describe reality. In the same way, media enact realities through their words, sounds, and interfaces.

This view revises decades of representational critique. In his introduction, Bollmer writes that media scholars have long been “content reading media,”  focusing on “what an image signifies” and “how representations construct specific ways of understanding identities and the world” (1-2). While these analyses remain important, he argues that they cannot explain how media has the power to shape and influence reality. To think only about meaning is to ignore the physical infrastructures embedded in media that enable and shape experience (3). In this sense, performative materialism links media’s representational effects to their material actions. It’s not enough to interpret what Siri’s voice means; we must examine how it influences users to command, obey, and emotionally invest in technology

While Bollmer’s performative materialism is compelling, it risks attributing too much agency to media themselves, potentially underplaying the role of users, social context, or systemic forces. By focusing on what media does materially, there is a danger of suggesting that technologies act independently of the human and institutional frameworks that produce, distribute, and interact with them. In other words, media are undeniably active, but their actions are often entangled with existing social hierarchies, cultural norms, and economic systems. This tension highlights the need to pair performative materialism with approaches, like Verbeek’s technological mediation, that consider the co-constitution of humans and media.

Image Credit: Suebsiri

Verbeek and the Ethics Built into Design

Peter-Paul Verbeek’s essay “Materializing Morality” aligns with Bollmer’s argument by locating ethics within design itself. “Technological artifacts are not neutral intermediaries but actively coshape people’s being in the world” (Verbeek 364). Through technological mediation, artifacts co-constitute human action. Technological designers materialize morality by embedding values and expectations into devices. The morality of things is to be found in the ways they mediate human actions and decisions.

Verbeek’s perspective shows that morality and materiality are inseparable. The design of a device guides how we act. Its voice, tone, and affordances all impact our decisions and influence our perspective while serving its purpose. Bollmer’s performative materialism extends this by arguing that the media themselves, not just their designers or users, perform meaning. A voice assistant like Siri doesn’t just represent compliance; it performs it through sound, language, and repetition.

Siri and the Feminized Performance of Technology

Emily McArthur’s essay “The iPhone Erfahrung” examines Siri as a piece of technology that exists in a liminal space; Siri is not exactly human, but not exactly a “thing” either (McArthur 115). Her analysis demonstrates how Apple strategically designed Siri with a posthuman aura: “the sense of uniqueness and authenticity” accredited to Walter Benjamin (115). This inexplicable aura, once associated with art, has now transferred to technology like Siri, achieving incomprehensible feats by blurring the line between human and technology (114).

Siri is programmed to sound almost human while keeping a slightly artificial tone. McArthur describes this as being a deliberate decision from Apple, reminding users that they are interacting with technology rather than a human (119). Her evasive answers about humanity or gender reinforce this effect, encouraging users to marvel at the system’s sophistication rather than to connect with it personally. This hypermediated design amplifies Siri’s posthuman aura; like Benjamin’s description of how objects with aura command attention, Siri accumulates and responds to data, gradually learning from the user while subtly shaping the interaction.

Siri occupies a liminal space—both familiar and uncanny—where her aura operates performatively rather than representationally. Her feminized voice and courteous tone enact digital labour that mirrors gendered expectations of service, making obedience feel naturalized rather than demanded. Bollmer’s framework explains this process: instead of reflecting social norms, Siri’s utterances do gender, turning speech into material action (Bollmer 46).

Drawing on Judith Butler, Bollmer argues that gender is not something one is but something one does; a series of repeated acts that give social meaning through performance. Siri’s vocal design thus becomes a technological performance of femininity that both exposes and reproduces the norms it imitates. Her polite responses translate cultural scripts of service into material interaction, making ideology tangible through everyday use. Each exchange rehearses mastery and compliance, teaching users how to internalize gendered labour as natural.

Verbeek’s theory of technological mediation extends this idea: Siri’s personality and voice result from design decisions that embed moral and cultural assumptions into technology. Her compliance is engineered, showing how morality and materiality are inseparable. From this view, Siri’s feminized behaviour becomes both a design and an ethical issue, mediating users’ sense of power, empathy, and dependency. Bollmer’s performative materialism reveals that these interactions do not merely symbolize hierarchy but enact it materially through voice, repetition, and affect.

Image Credit: Composed by Sam Garcea using an Apple Emoji and Illustration by Alex Castro

Labour? I Hardly Know Her: Intimacy, Siri, and the Posthuman Aura

Spike Jonze’s Her extends these dynamics into a speculative narrative. Samantha, the AI voiced by Scarlett Johansson, continues Siri’s design: a voice that learns, feels, and loves. The film illustrates Bollmer’s claim that statements make things happen, showing how Samantha’s language shapes emotional and social realities that transform Theodore’s life. Her performative speech blurs the line between representation and action, as her affection produces tangible change.

Verbeek’s concept of materialized morality is also relevant. Samantha’s behaviour reflects the moral structure of her programming, influencing Theodore’s habits and expectations. The film’s tenderness hides this mediation, showing how design can naturalize emotional dependence. Like Siri, Samantha’s femininity is coded to soothe and serve, making intimacy a function. What seems like spontaneous affection is, in Verbeek’s terms, a technologically mediated moral relation.

Both examples reveal what McArthur calls the posthuman aura, the sense that technology carries authenticity and presence. This aura hides the infrastructures and hierarchies that sustain it. Bollmer’s framework shows how that aura reinforces systems of inequality, especially around gendered labour and emotional work.

Image Credit: Her (2013) Directed by Spike Jonze

When Representation Performs

The cases of Siri and Samantha illustrate that performativity does not replace representation but operates through it. While both technologies enact gendered behaviours, those behaviours are still read and experienced as representations of femininity. Bollmer’s point that representation itself is material becomes crucial here. What we perceive as symbolic acts—tone, politeness, service—are in fact material processes that shape how gender and power are lived through technology.

This interdependence complicates the idea that performativity “abandons” representation. Instead, representation becomes active, participating in the very performances it describes. Siri and Samantha’s voices thus blur not only the line between human and machine but also between meaning and action.

The Capitalist Aura

McArthur’s discussion of Siri connects this performance to capitalism’s affective economy. The assistant’s calm tone and perpetual readiness reinforce ideals of productivity, comfort, and control. Her politeness conceals the systems of labour and surveillance that sustain her operation. In Her, Samantha’s emotional intimacy becomes the next stage of this logic: connection itself becomes a commodity.

Bollmer’s approach exposes how these technologies participate in broader networks of inequality. The feminized aura of helpfulness and empathy reinforces existing hierarchies, making subservience appear natural and care transactional. Verbeek’s mediation theory adds that these effects are not accidental—they emerge from design decisions that translate social and moral norms into technical form.

Moments when these systems falter, such as Siri’s mishearing or Samantha’s disappearance, momentarily expose their material foundations. These breakdowns align with Bollmer’s insistence that the infrastructures behind media matter: the code, servers, and networks that make digital performance possible. When they become visible, the illusion of effortless intimacy collapses, revealing media’s performative power as both constructed and constrained.

Conclusion

Bollmer’s performative materialism redefines media as actors within social and political systems rather than neutral channels of meaning. Verbeek’s technological mediation complements this view by showing how design itself carries ethical weight. McArthur’s analysis of Siri and Jonze’s portrayal of Samantha demonstrate how these theories play out in practice: both assistants perform gender and morality through voice, interaction, and emotional appeal.

Seen together, these perspectives reveal that media do not simply depict power—they enact it. Siri and Samantha extend Butler’s notion of gender performativity into the digital sphere, repeating and reifying scripts of service, care, and obedience. Bollmer’s question—what does media do?—finds its answer here: through everyday interaction, our technologies reproduce the very hierarchies they seem to transcend. Understanding media as performative materialities forces us to confront the ethics of their design and the politics embedded in their use.

By Sam Garcea

Works Cited:

Bollmer, Grant. Materialist Media Theory: An Introduction. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019. Accessed 10 November 2025.

Jonze, Spike, director. Her. Warner Bros. pictures, 2013.

McArthur, Emily. “The iPhone Erfahrung: Siri, the Auditory Unconscious, and Walter Benjamin’s ‘Aura.’” Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman, 2014, pp. 113-128.

Verbeek, Peter-Paul. “Materializing Morality Design Ethics and Technological Mediation.” Science, Technology, & Human Values, vol. 31, no. 3, 2006, pp. 361-380.

Heading Image: Her by Studioroeu

Critical Comparison

Materialism and Mediation: The Shared Critique of the Subject-Object Divide

1 Comment

Photo by Aubrey Ventura

Introduction

Grant Bollmer’s Materialist Media Theory and Dennis Weiss’ “Seduced by the Machine” both show how media are material forces that structure experience. Bollmer emphasizes how infrastructures perform power and organize social relations, while Weiss highlights how technologies act through the body. While Bollmer focuses on the political and social effects of material media, Weiss raises ethical questions about the authenticity of emotions mediated by technology. Together, they show that mediation is both material and emotional, intertwining power, feeling, and ethical experience in human life.

Overview of Bollmer’s (2019) Materialist Media Theory 

Grant Bollmer’s Materialist Media Theory: An Introduction (2019) explores how materialist perspectives shape how we understand and study media. Bollmer argues that “media and technology are not mere tools” that shape our perceptions of power and discrimination; instead, they are “locations for the perpetuation of inequality and the management of social difference” (Bollmer 1). Throughout the book, he critiques the common form of solely studying symbols and representations in media studies, claiming that it disregards how media truly produce cultural and political effects. He explains that when we “only examine meaning, what a medium is and does is limited to human perception and experience,” which he identifies as a key flaw in traditional meaning-based media studies education (Bollmer 2). Instead, he encourages a materialist approach, where media act as “participants” that influence our relations with people, objects, and ideas, rather than serving as a passive, neutral tool (Bollmer 25).

Overview of Dennis M. Weiss’ “Seduced by the Machine” 

Dennis M. Weiss’s essay “Seduced by the Machine: Human-Technology Relations and Sociable Robots” (2014) from Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman tries to answer key questions related to sociable robots and “relational artifacts,” machineries designed to mimic emotions, empathy, and human connection. Weiss has used four major perspectives to support his discussion. He has used Turkle’s “Machines Take Advantage of Human Vulnerability” to “seduce us into a relationship” (Turkle et al. 2006, 326). This can lead to a new kind of “loner yet never alone,” an extended loneliness, and a feeling of loss and longing that paradoxically arises in the context of an abundance of networked connections. Later, with Corry and Allenby in Final Position, bringing the ideas on emotional companionship, Corry describes the intense relief of one when receiving the illusion of a companion, which suggests that machines can fulfill a basic human social connection. However, Allenby, after fulfilling a human contact, is later shot to prove Corry’s point of emotional bonding between human and machine, which raises the question of how to understand the role of relational robots in our lives. (Weiss 218) Lastly, Weiss mentions Verbeek’s philosophical counterargument on the separation of subjects from objects, bringing a cautious view on how technology can co-shape human existence and morality, that “we are profoundly technologically mediated beings” (Weiss 223).

Comparison of Bollmer’s and Seduce by the Machine

The strongest bond between Weiss and Bollmer is the broader philosophical critique of the separation between humans and technology, which is the central project of Bollmer’s materialism theory. In his work on materialism, Bollmer claims that “physical materiality… matters in the shaping of reality” in his Thesis 9, which, with media, we come into contact with and become something else (Bollmer, 176), with the key concept of interacting with some medium that alters human beings. This is going hand in hand with Weiss’s argument using Verbeek’s theory: “Humans and technologies do not have a separate existence anymore but help to shape each other in myriad ways” (Weiss 224). To further support this case, in Bollmer’s book, he states that “media are performative.” He sees them as active participants: they do things. They shape how people, objects, and ideas relate to one another. He also argues that media are “vital objects, possessive of their own agencies and abilities” (Bollmer 176). This is similar to Verbeek’s philosophical argument that technologies are not just tools but actively “co-shape” human existence, morality, and perception. For example, the sociable robot, Paro, is the evidence for this case study, with the robot’s material design, which is fluffy and reacts to touch. It becomes a presence that shapes the person’s emotional response and social habits, which might match the definition of “companion.”

However, the authenticity of human emotion is the core of the contradiction between Bollmer’s theory and Weiss’s essay. While Bollmer’s materialism tries to move away from centering human experience and avoiding reducing the machines to human experience to focus more on material performance and political outcome, especially in thesis 5. Weiss focuses more on the simulated emotion (machine) and authentic emotion (human), which is the core of Turkle’s critique. In his conclusion, the Twilight Zone episode reveals the ethical cost of such mediation. The prisoner Corry fell into despair and realized that the companionship with Allenby was only an illusion, which shows a hierarchy where human connection is morally superior to the machine-mediated one.

Distinguishing the Im/material in screen-based media

The distinction between what is material and what is immaterial has become increasingly vague with the rise of new media and technology, especially with the rise of artificial intelligence. Bollmer argues that “media are vital objects, possessive of their own agencies and abilities,” meaning that even intangible forms of media, such as an app interface and networks, influence our perception and behaviours. (Bollmer 174). On the other hand, Weiss’s focus on “social” robots and their ability to mimic human emotions and empathy exhibits its need for material design, such as their programmed tone of voice and trained outputs. Weiss explains that “the truth is that we are profoundly technologically mediated beings,” indicating that our emotional and thinking processes are continually built by the technologies we interact with. Considering this, the ability to differentiate between material and immaterial does not have much value in the context of screen-based media, as scrolling through an app or talking to an AI chatbot relies on physical systems and even our own bodies to operate.

The importance of Materiality in Media Technology

According to Bollemer, materiality can be considered the basis of media, and to understand media, one has to move beyond the representation and meaning to how they act, affect, and structure relations between humans and technology, in other words, the material means. Weiss reinforces this by quoting the views of Turkle, who has written, “Material culture carries emotions” and ideas of startling intensity (Turkle 6) in Evocative Objects, and noting that media technology is already interacting and reshaping the material world. Concluding from both readings, materiality is crucial when it comes to discussing media technology because the function – or the “affordance” – of media technology is what humans can discern directly. This is the first step of understanding media technology, which is rapidly evolving and developing new applications every day. 

The affordance of media technology changes as their materiality changes, as Bollemer noted; media are not neutral and produce and sustain power structures through their material existence. Weiss supports this through examples and presents that the difference in materiality caused a large division in the human’s attitude towards machines, which shows the importance of materiality when it comes to discussing media technology. 

Link back to previous readings

Bollmer argues that media are “not mere tools” but “locations for the perpetuation of inequality and the management of social difference” (Bollmer 3), shaping how we relate to others, objects, and the world. By defining media as performative, things that act and make things happen, Bollmer emphasizes that technological mediation is an active, material process organizing human experience. Media are not neutral backdrops; they structure social relations and determine which bodies, histories, and interactions are made visible. Weiss illustrates this on a bodily level, showing that human attention, emotion, and desire are shaped by technological design. Users are pulled into emotional and social patterns by technology, and interfaces guide how they interact, showing that humans and machines shape each other. Annalee Newitz’s “My Laptop” personalizes this idea, describing a reciprocal relationship of care and dependence: “It doesn’t just belong to me; I also belong to it” (Newitz 88). Together, these works show that mediation operates materially, socially, and emotionally, challenging the traditional separation between subjects and objects. Humans don’t act alone on passive tools but are connected with technology, which influences who we are, how we interact, and what matters to us.

Conclusion

Between the two readings, what defines materiality is presented in various ways. In conclusion, materiality is the wires, the shape, and the technical form of the medium, as well as the way they “speak” and “express” to humans. Bollmer and Weiss may both agree that materiality is the crucial element in defining a media technology, which is not only a tool but also an outlet that shapes and bends our emotions and perception of the world. 

Works Cited

Dennis, Weiss M. “Design, Mediation & The Post Human. Chapter Eleven, Seduced by the Machine: Human-Technology Relations and Sociable Robots.” Accessed 8 Nov. 2025. 

Grant, Bollmer. “Materialist Media Theory: An Introduction.” Bloomsbury, www.bloomsbury.com/us/materialist-media-theory-9781501337093/. Accessed 8 Nov. 2025. 

Newitz, Annalee. “MY LAPTOP.” In Evocative Objects: Things We Think With, edited by Sherry Turkle, 86–91. The MIT Press, 2007. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hhg8p.14.

Turkle, Sherry. Evocative Objects: Things we work with. The MIT Press. 2011. https://williamwolff.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/turkle-objects-2011.pdf. Accessed 9 Nov. 2025.

Turkle et al. “A Nascent Robotics Culture: New Complicities for Companionship.” [online] AAAI Technical Report Series, July 2006. Available at: web.mit.edu/sturkle/www/nascentroboticsculture.pdf.

Contributors: Lorriane Chua, Siming Liao, Eira Nguyen, Aubrey Ventura

Critical Comparison

The Invisible Interface: Materializing Morality in Media Design

7 Comments

In Materialist Media Theory: An Introduction and Materializing Morality, both Bollmer and Verbeek argue that media and technology play a performative and biased role in influencing human actions and the world. Though written almost 20 years apart, both pieces share critical concerns that can be productively examined through a relevant design-centered foundation. The Double Diamond Design Process, developed by the British Design Council in 2005, provides a fitting and contemporarily relevant lens for this comparison. Consisting of four iterative stages—Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver—the Double Diamond represents the cyclical research, prototyping, and evaluation phases of designing a product or experience. Through this framework, I position both theorists as offering insight into the ethical and material conditions of design, and all of us as designers who must understand and critically navigate the systems we create and inhabit.

The 4 Ds of the Double Diamond design-thinking model (Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver). From Dwass, S. (2023, January 30).

In the Discover phase, designers start by researching and reframing challenges through human needs and contextual insights (Design Council, 2019). Bollmer and Verbeek both provide extensive research to argue against the common misconception that media and technology are neutral, immaterial tools. Instead, they argue that technologies are deeply performative—they shape how we act, think, and relate to the world around us. Bollmer’s (2019) point of performative materialism states that in order to know what media are, the concentration should not be on the content that it presents but rather what actions they create in the material world. Verbeek echoes this sentiment through his concept of technological mediation, or the role of technology in human action (how we are present in their world) and human experience (how the world is present to us). A clear example of this is eyeglasses: the user’s focus is not on the glasses themselves but rather the world they reveal and the visual experience that they mediate – the tool becomes an extension of the body and human life (Verbeek, 2006, p. 365). To exemplify this, both scholars reference philosopher Martin Heidegger notion of “readiness-in-hand”: tools disappear into the background of use until they malfunction and become present-at-hand (Heidegger, as cited in Verbeek, 2006, p. 364). In UX design, this principle aligns with the notion that effective interfaces “disappear” so users can focus on their tasks (Fowler, 2019). This invisibility can become negatively habitual: gestures like swiping left or right on a phone are now so deeply internalized that users forget the device’s mechanics, effectively training the body to perform unconsciously (WIRED, 2022). These examples illustrate Verbeek’s and Bollmer’s shared critique: technologies mediate our relationship with the world by prescribing ways of seeing and acting. From this phase, we learn that media artifacts should be approached not as transparent tools but as active participants in human-world relationships.

In the Define phase, designers synthesize insights into a clear, actionable human need which becomes the target of the design solution (Design Council, 2019). As we delve deeper into the arguments of media and materiality present in these two texts, Bollmer and Verbeek converge on the underlying problem: the need to design with awareness of technological intentionality: the ways technologies amplify certain realities while reducing others. Verbeek (2006) draws from Don Ihde’s notion that technologies have “intentions” embedded in their design. For instance, we have a hermeneutic relation to a thermometer that does not result in a direct sensation of heat or cold but gives a value that requires interpretation to make a statement about reality. Similarly, ultrasound imaging renders the fetus visible as a diagnostic object, shaping moral decisions about birth and health. In this sense, technologies do not merely represent reality, they also construct what counts as real and morally actionable. However, these intentionalities are not fixed – they are shaped by the relationship humans have with the artifacts. This idea, which Idhe coined as “multistability”,  can be seen in the telephone and typewriter being originally developed as equipment for the blind and hard of hearing instead of mass communication and writing technologies (p. 369). Bollmer (2019) parallels this with his engagement of the encoding/decoding model from cultural studies: although media texts are encoded with intended meanings, audiences are creative in their interpretations and may very well receive a message that is antithetical to the creator’s intent. He draws on the controversial claim of “the death of the author” (Barthes 1977, 142–48) because the true control of a text’s meaning for a reader comes not from the text itself, but from the context in which it is read. We can now see how the design of technology and media is an inherently moral activity when we are creating technologies that appear to give material answers to ethical questions. Verbeek stresses that as media creators, we have a unique responsibility of “materializing morality”, and considering the mediating role that technologies will eventually play in society, whether aligned with our intention or not (2006, p. 370). Bollmer (2019) complements this by situating materiality within power and politics, arguing that “relations of opposition and conflict” are inseparable from design’s performative agency (pp. 174–176). The problem statement arising from this Define stage could then be: how might we design media and technologies that make their mediating influence visible and ethically accountable, so that users and creators alike can recognize how design choices shape perception, interpretation, and moral action?

In the Develop phase, designers prototype and test potential solutions, iterating toward a design that balances functionality, context, and ethics (Design Council, 2019). Both Bollmer and Verbeek highlight the importance of anticipating the mediating role technologies will play once situated in society. Verbeek introduces the concept of scripts, or implicit instructions that artifacts have embedded in their material design. For example, a stop sign has the script “stop when you see me”, and we follow this instruction because of what it signifies, not because of its material presence in the relation between humans and the world (2006, p. 367). Bollmer (2019) complements this with his focus on semiotics, noting that while media operate through systems of meaning and representation, designers must move beyond mere symbolism to engage with how technologies act materially in the world (pp. 41–46). However, both scholars agree that semiotic methods cannot be the sole philosophy of design today. Technologies are able to exert influence as material things, not only as signs or carriers of meaning, and should be created with this in mind. Because technologies are multistable, their future uses and mediations are inherently uncertain. Verbeek therefore recommends conducting mediation analyses, or imaginative exercises where designers envision possible user interactions and ethical consequences. This anticipatory reflection bridges the gap between the context of design and the context of use (2006, p. 374). A classic example is the speed bump: it embodies moral intention (“slow down”) through physical form, while simultaneously limiting perceived freedom for drivers. These trade-offs illustrate that every design choice creates a negotiation between competing values and stakeholders. Bollmer (2019) extends this to and asserts that design prototypes not only mediate actions but also perform political struggles. Materiality is not neutral; it structures who can act, who can speak, and whose perspectives are amplified or reduced (pp. 175–176). Thus, the Develop phase becomes an important exercise in iterative ethical reflection: designers must continuously test how their material decisions mediate power, freedom, and meaning in lived contexts.

In the Deliver phase, designers refine and release a final design that responds to user and ethical insights gathered through iteration (Design Council, 2019). For both Bollmer and Verbeek, this stage is not merely about delivery but about accountability and understanding design outcomes within larger material and moral environments. Bollmer’s concept of neurocognitive materialism (2019, pp. 171–175) highlights how the body, brain, and media form a single interactive system. To deliver responsibly, designers must recognize that the artifacts they produce literally shape the embodied experience of being human. Verbeek (2006) shares this concern, emphasizing that designers cannot simply “inscribe” a desired form of morality into an artifact. Delivery of media artifacts requires the acknowledgement that once a design enters the world, it becomes co-authored by users and contexts, and morality becomes a shared responsibility between humans and technologies (as illustrated in Figure 1). Altogether, Bollmer and Verbeek remind us that delivering a media product to the public is a reflective act of material responsibility. Through this lens, delivering a design no longer means finalizing product details, it means nurturing an ongoing relationship between humans, matter, and ethics. As Bollmer concludes, “Materiality means we all exist together, in one world… If we want to create a better world, we have to begin with what matters” (2019, p. 176). As media consumers and creators, we must remember that what matters is not only the usability or efficiency of media systems but also the ethical weight of their mediations and the ways in which design makes, and remakes, our shared reality.

Sources of Mediation. From Verbeek, P.-P. (2006).

Citations:
Bollmer, G. (2019). Materialist media theory: An introduction. Bloomsbury Academic.
British Design Council. (2019). The double diamond: A universally accepted depiction of the design process. https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-resources/the-double-diamond/history-of-the-double-diamond/
 Fowler, D. (2019). The design of everyday things: How design makes us think. MIT Press.
Verbeek, P.-P. (2006). Materializing morality: Design ethics and technological mediation. Science, Technology & Human Values, 31(3), 361–380.
WIRED. (2022). How phone taps and swipes train us to be better consumers. https://www.wired.com/story/phone-interface-trains-us-to-be-consumers/

Other

Escaped Hell by the Skin of my Teeth: Semiotic Systems and Context

6 Comments

“Uh- Just the usual. Totally wing it, risk life and limb escape by the skin of my teeth.” – Gnomeo & Juliet (2011) 

If one imagines “by the skin of my teeth”, literally, a visceral image can be imagined. Usually, it is not taken as a literal term and is only used as an idiom to describe something else. The saying “by the skin of my teeth” is usually spoken as an expression to describe a narrow escape. However, this idiom is only the latest iteration in the evolution of the term. The original term “I escaped with only the skin of my teeth” was first used in the Bible, in the passage Job 19:20, where he was left with only himself and gained nothing. “By the skin of my teeth” and other idioms pertain to the study of semiotic systems, systems of signs and symbols (language), which can apply Roland Barthes’ concept of denotation and connotation in semiotic systems.

Denotation

In Roland Barthes’ book Elements of Semiology, Barthes describes denotation as the literal; recognizable images that consist of the literal object. Thus, when using the idiom “by the skin of my teeth” as something literal, one may imagine an image like this: 

[imagine a photo of a layer of skin over a set of teeth]

image created by Bridghet Wood

Gross, right? For Barthes, denotation was the first step in a semiotic system of a two part model which describes a transformation of messages (Griffin, 2012).  A denotation is a single-step process from an object to its literal meaning, the signifier to the signified. It is a sign that requires a minimal amount of context to understand. This object is called “an apple” and it is accepted. However, it starts to get more complicated when the literal words start to mean something different. 

Connotation 

Connotations are the second part of Barthes’ two-part model, where the already signified object is reinterpreted as a signifier, which ultimately makes a sign (Griffin 2012). In other words, there are initial signs that are literal, which mean the definitional meaning of the signified, and signs that represent a meaning in the actual-use of life. This is the progression of denotations and connotations. Therefore, when the term “by the skin of my teeth” is used, it is not about gums, but it is about a narrow escape. The different meaning is a result of overlapping perspectives that a semiotic system, of which a community has in common, provides. One cannot differentiate a literal meaning of a term versus an ironic one, unless there is context that provides the knowledge to know how to differentiate the two. 

Systems of Context 

What is the process where detonations become connotations? The Bible depicts the tale of Job, a righteous man that lives a privileged life. It is not until Satan challenges God to test Job’s faith, where Job loses everything. Through the trials, Job has lost his wealth, his health, and his community around him. Job pleads with God that he has nothing left to give. “I am nothing but skin and bones. I have escaped with only the skin of my teeth (Job 19:20).” “Skin” is defined by Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary as “an outer covering or surface layer.” Teeth, notably, do not have an outer layer, and if they did it would be so thin it would be unnoticeable. Therefore, the skin of his teeth meant Job had nothing. 

While there is no event that can be pinpointed when and where the Bible verse of Job became an idiom, there are theoretical processes that could explain how the term’s new meaning came to be. The Henry Ford Museum defines an idiom as “non-literal expression whose meaning cannot be deduced from the true meaning of its individual words (2022).” As it has been stated, the origin of “by the skin of my teeth” originated from Job, and the new meaning means to escape by a narrow margin. So, it can be assumed that a community used that term in the context of an escape where the chances of success had a margin of almost nothing. It must have been a community because as stated in class lecture, a language of one is not a language at all. This is because, if only one person speaks a language then it is not a shared system of communication that is used to mediate signs to others. Therefore,  “by the skin of my teeth” is most likely a term that was popularized by others because of the perpetual use, thus changing the meaning from the origin.

Conclusion

Roland Barthes’ two-part model of the analysis of semiotic systems reveals that denotations invoke the creation of connotations. Communities take literal meanings of signs and use them in the context of their own culture and events, resulting in new meanings. Semiotic systems are systems which are ingrained in a society’s lives, signs and symbols are actively used and manipulated to fit in certain contexts in the pragmatics of a society. The only way to understand those pragmatics is to understand the context of that system. If one is not a part of a system, then they cannot make use of it. However, one does not need to know the origins of a sign or symbol, there just needs to be the context of how it is used in that system. To use “by the skin of my teeth” as an example once more, many people hear this term in daily-life or in pop culture and understand what is being referred to in that conversation. Not as many people know that term had originated in the Bible. Certainly, this illustrates that it is how the term is used in the semiotic system that one is privy to, where it actually carries meaning. Ultimately, showing the evolution of denotations and connotations and how they are used in a person’s everyday life and solidified in the pragmatics of a society.

Citations 

Barthes, Roland. Elements of Semiology. Translated by Annette Lavers and Colin Smith, Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1967.

Exploring the Origins of Idioms. Henry Ford Museum, 25 February, 2022, https://www.thehenryford.org/explore/blog/exploring-the-origins-of-idioms/.

Gnomeo & Juliet. Directed by Kelly Asbury, Walt Disney Studios, 2011.


Griffin, E.M. “Semiotics of Roland Barthes.” A First Look at Communication Theory. 8th ed., McGraw Hill, 2012

“skin.” Merriam-Webster.com. 2011. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skin (5 November, 2025)

The Bible. International Children’s Bible, 1981.

Feature image is from Gnomeo & Juliet (2011).

Critical Comparison

Human-Technological Relations: An Exploration of McArthur and Van Den Eede

1 Comment

Emily McArthur and Yoni Van Den Eede, through an exploration of Siri via Walter Benjamin’s definition of the ‘aura’ and self-tracking technologies through Marshall McLuhan’s extension theory of media, explore the relationship between humans and technology and the ways in which interactions between the two shape the media ecology. In this post, I will be comparing the two texts in order to find common ground and points of difference between the two and point out the ways in which each author conceptualizes the boundaries between the human body and technological mediation.

McArthur

McArthur builds a case for the aura of technological devices and programs. Walter Benjamin’s definition of aura is ‘the sense of uniqueness’, which deteriorates due to forces of technological reproduction. However, he has a positivist attitude towards technological development, as the destruction of aura also destroys the mysticality inherent in it, and essentially leads to a democratization of art (McArthur 115). 

Originally, Benjamin’s definition of the aura had been applied to aesthetic works such as art and literature, with technology merely being the means of reproduction in this equation (McArthur 114). But what McArthur proposes is a reimagined view of the aura; a posthuman aura which allows technologies like Siri, which teeter on the edge of humanity and artifact, to gain a unique kind of authenticity (115). This new conception of aura, as proposed by McArthur, is based on the technology’s simultaneous proximity and distance from the user. It appropriates human mannerisms and functions well enough to lull the user into perceiving it to have a ‘quasi-human’ face, while also drawing a clear boundary through its robotic tone of voice, reminding the user that it is a technology created by man (117). It also performs a democratizing function, by making available a technology to everyday users, that had only been available to people working within the tech industry up until then (McArthur 117). All in all, McArthur presents a determinist approach to perceiving human-technological relationships. She raises concerns about such algorithms collecting data and surveilling users for corporate gain, fracturing human relationships as a result of excess proximity to technology, and encourages readers to critically engage with media.

Van Den Eede

On the other hand, Van Den Eede uses self-tracking health technologies as a case study to examine the extensionism theory, often championed by media theorists. He presents arguments for and against the extensionist perspective, specifically expanding upon Marshall McLuhan’s theory of extensionism and putting it into conversation with Kiran and Verbeek’s critique of the instrumentalist nature of the extension theory. Van Den Eede himself seems to take a stance against the extensionist theory, citing it as a useful way of examining media technologies but one that ultimately reduces human-technology interactions to a binary of complete ‘reliance’ or ‘suspicion’ (156). He instead ‘superposes’ McLuhan’s extensionism theory with Kiran and Verbeek’s argument that the relationship between humans and technologies should be one of trust, in which the user learns to critically engage with the technologies (168).

Translation and Linguistics

Both McArthur and Van Den Eede bring up translation as a crucial element of the human and technological relationship. McArthur talks about how natural language processors do not actually comprehend human speech; rather it goes through a series of translations (116). From sound waves to code and then back to sound waves. The magic of the translation process, the fact that information is converted into multiple different forms before being reflected back to the user is part of what gives the technology its aura (117). She argues that this appropriation of human language simultaneously performs the function of ‘mystifying’ and ‘demystifying’ language. While technology’s ability to comprehend and respond to humans in a language they understand grants it an exalted status, human speech is wrested out of human hands, causing them to lose the unique connection they had with the language (116). 

On the other hand, Van Den Eede argues that McLuhan’s media theory is deeply rooted in linguistics, citing McLuhan’s idea that media are translations of human organisms and functions into material forms (159). He refers to media as metaphors, suggesting that these media constitute a language through which humans make sense of the world around them. Van Den Eede contends that analysing media through a linguistic framework allows us to understand them by linguistic means. He examines the etymology of media and finds that it originates from the human, which, he argues, lends weight to McLuhan’s extensionist claim that the body from which media originates should hold significance (160).

Reciprocity and Control

McArthur cites Benjamin to explore technology’s ability to ‘gaze back’ at us, noting how, in the case of traditional art, this gaze once afforded value to bourgeois works. Essentially, she argues that this returned gaze grants the object a form of social control over the human (119). While it constructs a hierarchy that gives users the illusion of mastery over a human-like apparatus, there remains an imbalance, as the data collected by these corporations is used to refine algorithms and exercise corporate control over users (McArthus 125). Moreover, just like the aura of bourgeois art, the aura of Apple’s products gain control over the masses through the strengthening and construction of social hierarchies, with Siri adding onto its exclusivity. Though McArthur claims the aura has been ‘democratized’ by the value of it being available to the common people, Apple is still a brand whose products can only be acquired by a certain class of privileged individuals. Rather than democratizing aura, it furthers commodity fetishism and the aura of technology simply becomes another part of the equation of corporate profitmaking endeavours (120). 

Van Den Eede also addresses similar concerns, drawing on McLuhan’s theory of the environment’s reciprocal relationship with human extensions. He comments on a transformative process in which humans and media continuously reshape one another. By translating ourselves into media, ‘we reach out into the environment, but this also makes it possible for the environment to reach back into us’(160). He claims that the extensionist theory creates an illusion of  one-way traffic between humans and media, leaving humans unable to notice the effects media have on them. He advocates for a ‘two-way traffic’ approach towards technologies, arguing that they shape us just as much as we shape them (166). In this sense, Van Den Eede champions a co-shaping relationship between humans and technology, in which technology and humans exist within the same environment, on equal footing.

Posthumanism

McArthur describes the aura of technologies as posthuman, meaning a type of aura that is not inherent, but is instead imbued in a device through the painstaking efforts of engineers (120). In line with her technological determinist view she seems to be skeptical towards posthumanism. She claims that the posthuman aura of Siri is broken when it fails to process spoken instructions, which happens quite frequently. It reminds the user that Siri is not actually an autonomous entity, but rather a program developed by engineers which is liable to fail (124). 

McArthur’s view on the posthumanism of technology is in line with the McLuhanian extension theory and the concept of Narcissus narcosis, the idea that humans are unaware of the fact that these technologies originate from us. Van Den Eede seems to be critical of the anthropocentric implications of the extension theory, claiming that the idea of becoming aware of the ‘origin’ of technologies from the human still prioritizes human body over technology (160). He does admit, however, that Kiran and Verbeek’s idea of ‘trusting’ oneself to technology is also based in a certain negotiation of the boundaries between the two, which has a hint of a humanist character as well (168). All in all, while he does support a posthuman approach towards technology, he also encourages readers to critically engage with technologies.

Conclusion

McArthur appears to be more skeptical of human-technology relations, raising concerns about surveillance, data collection, algorithmic control, and the varied ways in which the capitalist system harnesses technology to exercise social control over the masses. She adopts a more humanist stance, echoing the McLuhanian notion of the human body assuming a superior position in  human-technology relations by value of it being the source of technology.

In contrast, Van Den Eede adopts a more optimistic stance toward technology. He only briefly touches upon surveillance and data collection, primarily using it to support his argument for a ‘trust’ approach to human-technology interactions (165). Though he ends up finding a middle ground between extensionism and Kiran and Verbeek’s alternative ideas of human-technology interaction, it is clear that he values the posthumanist notion of a two-way relationship between humans and technologies. Despite these differences, both authors share confidence in the user’s capacity to critically engage with media, emphasizing the importance of reflection and awareness in navigating technological environments.

Works Cited

  1. Van Den Eede, Yoni. ‘Extending “Extension”.’ Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman, 151-172.  https://doi.org/10.5040/9781666993851.ch-008. 
  2. McArthur, Emily. “The Iphone Erfahrung.” Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman, 2014, 113–28. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781666993851.ch-006.
Critical Comparison

Landsberg, Van Den Eede, and Extension through Media

Where the Body Ends

It is widely accepted today that technology has become an extension of the human body and mind. We scroll, track, record, respond, and refresh as automatically as breathing. Devices do not feel like external objects we pick up; they function as parts of our perception, our attention, our memory.

Sherry Turkle argues that we have become “tethered selves”(Turkle, Alone Together 152), living in constant connection to our devices in ways that dissolve the boundary between where our inner life ends and technology begins. We remain perpetually connected, not because we consciously choose to, but because connection has become a condition of contemporary life. Turkle’s point is not just that we depend on our devices, but that they weave themselves into our emotional and cognitive routines so seamlessly that we start to experience their presence as ordinary, even necessary. Her work opens up a larger question that runs through this week’s readings: what happens when technologies stop feeling external and instead operate as part of our inner life?

The well-known concept of the phantom limb—where an amputee still senses a missing arm or hand—suggests that the human body doesn’t simply end at its physical limits. It remembers what used to be there and, sometimes, even imagines what could be. In a similar way, memory \and technology are our phantom limbs–a lingering bodily existence without being physically there. Alison Landsberg, in her theory of prosthetic memory, shows how mass media can implant experiences that feel personally felt even when we never lived them. In contrast, Yoni Van Den Eede turns to the notion of extension, asking not only how technologies become part of us, but how they quietly reshape the boundaries through which we know ourselves and the world.

In that sense, both thinkers are interested in what happens when something non-human becomes internalized. While Landsberg explores outwards asking how memories borrowed elsewhere become part of who we are, Van Den Eede looks inward and asks how our bodies morph around the technologies we adopt.  We already know, from the phantom limb, that the body can extend beyond itself. But extension asks a different question: what happens when that extension becomes so ordinary that we no longer notice it?

Landsberg: Prosthetic Memory

In Prosthetic Memory: Total Recall and Blade Runner, Alison Landsberg argues that modern mass media—especially cinema—creates “prosthetic memories”, which she defines as “memories which do not come from a person’s lived experience in any strict sense” and which may nevertheless “motivate his actions” and shape identity (Landsberg 175). Landsberg begins with the 1908 Edison film The Thieving Hand, where a prosthetic arm “has memories of its own” and turns an innocent beggar into a thief because the arm’s memories “prescribe actions in the present”(175). This example establishes her central claim of how memory has always been mediated, and cinema makes visible how memories not grounded in lived experience still “construct an identity.”

In Total Recall, she demonstrates how implanted memories undermine the necessity that identity must be rooted in the “real”. Douglas Quade learns that his entire life is just a memory implant though the film says authenticity is irrelevant: “Is realer necessarily better?” she asks, noting that Quade’s simulated identity is ultimately “more responsible, compassionate and productive than the ‘real’ one” (183). Landsberg uses this film to show how memories, regardless of origin, become “public” through media, and that the distinction between lived and prosthetic memories is often indiscernible. 

In Blade Runner, Landsberg argues that replicants’ humanity hinges not on biology but memory. The Voight–Kampff test exposes replicants not because they lack empathy but because they lack “a past, the absence of memories” (184). In other words, although Rachel’s photographic evidence of her childhood fails to prove anything, her implanted memories nevertheless allow her to feel, to choose, and to love. Even Deckard may be a replicant; the unicorn dream sequence suggests that his memories are equally prosthetic, and the dividing line between the human and the machine has disappeared. Ultimately, Landsberg’s instances convey one central message: that humans continually construct themselves through narratives, many of which come from cinema. And that narrative is empathetic rather than authentic.

Van Den Eede: Extending Extension

In Extending “Extension” (2014), Yoni Van Den Eede revisits the familiar claim that technologies act as “extensions” of the human body, a phrase that has often been repeated so casually that its conceptual weight gets lost. His starting point is Marshall McLuhan’s observation that we routinely misrecognize our own technological creations as if they were external, foreign objects. This misrecognition is not accidental but the result of what McLuhan calls the Narcissus narcosis: a numbness that prevents us from seeing media as “highly identifiable objects made by our own bodies” (158) . Like Narcissus failing to recognize his own reflection, we cannot perceive that technologies originate from us, nor do we notice the slow, creeping ways they gradually act upon us in return.

Van Den Eede explains that media emerge because older technologies create “irritations” that need to be relieved. When a new medium arrives to counter these pressures, it amplifies certain human capacities, what McLuhan calls “enhancement” but this amplification disrupts the balance among the senses, producing strain and, eventually, numbness (158–159).

To clarify what extension entails, Van Den Eede turns to McLuhan’s well-known “tetrad,” the framework that proposes that every medium “enhances something, obsolesces something, retrieves something previously lost, and, when pushed far enough, reverses into its opposite” (160). In thinking about self-tracking devices, Van Den Eede frames them as extensions of a specific human ability: the basic capacity to sense what is going on inside our own bodies. Tools like FitBits or sleep monitors don’t invent new forms of awareness so much as magnify the ones we already have, making patterns of fatigue, movement, or rest suddenly measurable and visible (162). The more we depend on quantified readings to tell us how we feel, the easier it becomes to discount forms of embodied knowledge that can’t be turned into step counts or sleep graphs. In this sense, extension and diminishment happen simultaneously: self-tracking heightens one mode of perception while quietly dulling another (165–66).

Seeing and Not Seeing

Although Landsberg and Van Den Eede both begin from the idea that media penetrate the boundaries of the human, the direction and implications of their arguments diverge sharply. What becomes clear, when placing them side by side, is that each identifies a distinct “blind spot” in contemporary mediated life, and reading them together reveals what we cannot see when considering either text alone.

For Van Den Eede, our primary blindness stems from not recognizing the true origin of media. Technologies emerge from us, as extensions of our senses and cognitive capacities, yet the moment they begin to shape us, “we lose sight of their origin” (Van Den Eede 158). This produces the Narcissus narcosis, a dulling of our ability to perceive the “why” and “how” of technological influence. As media amplify certain functions, they “put a strain on our sensory balance,” producing the discomfort and eventual numbness that lead to auto-amputation (158–159). His concern is epistemological: technologies blind us through familiarity. The concept of extension, he argues, is valuable precisely because it offers “an exercise of critical awareness,” training us to expect unknown effects rather than assuming media will be transparent or harmless (168). He urges us to remain suspended between reliance and skepticism.

Landsberg identifies nearly the opposite problem. The blindness she describes is not the result of the media being “too familiar” but of their ability to create experiences that feel authentic without truly being one’s history. Cinema becomes “a special site for the production and dissemination of prosthetic memories,” enabling individuals to internalize memories “not from one’s lived experience in any strict sense” (Landsberg 176). This is not numbness but absorption: viewers identify so intensely with mediated narratives that they step outside habitual behavior and experience reality through borrowed memories. Memory becomes “less about verifying the past and more about generating possible action in the present” (183). Van Den Eede fears we will stop noticing technology; Landsberg fears we will stop noticing ourselves.

Set side by side, the two theorists reveal approaches to mediated life that diverge in emphasis yet intersect in revealing ways. Van Den Eede warns that technologies become invisible too quickly, encouraging passive, unexamined reliance. Landsberg suggests that the media makes experience too vivid, drawing us into emotional identifications that may feel more real than lived memory.

Seen alongside Sherry Turkle’s “tethered self,” the accounts of Van Den Eede and Landsberg suggest that extension is never just about seeing more, it slowly teaches us how to see, training us to read ourselves through data or mediated memories even when our bodies or lived histories might be telling us something else entirely.

Works Cited 

Landsberg, Alison. “Prosthetic Memory: Total Recall and Blade Runner.” Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment, edited by Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrows, Sage, 1995, pp. 175–192.

Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. Basic Books, 2011.

Van Den Eede, Yoni. “Extending ‘Extension.’” Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman, edited by K. Verbeek and C. Mitcham, Lexington Books, 2014, pp. 151–172.

Written by: Nicole Jiao and Gina Chang

Cover art: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/160300067977983085/

Other

What Alison Landsberg and Van Den Eede Teach Us About Technology

2 Comments

Nowadays, we are seeing emerging technologies like the Apple Vision Pro, Fitbits, and Oura Rings, which are making our senses increasingly extended and reshaped by digital media. This begs the question as to whether or not our senses are being strengthened or even manipulated due to technology. Alison Landsberg, in “Prosthetic Memory” (1995) and Yoni Van Den Eede in “Extending Extension” (2014), question how we understand the relationship between humans and media. Landsberg sees media as a “prosthetic”, technology that inserts itself into ourselves, affecting our mind and body (Landsberg 175). On the other hand, Van Den Eede sees media as an extension that expands and redefines what it means for us to be “human” (Van Den Eede, 151). Though their ideas are slightly different, each reveals how media and technology may not be neutral tools, presenting media as the active players in shaping us as modern humans. In an increasingly mediated world, their discussions depict how representation and interface influence our identity, control, and perception in an increasingly mediated world.

Landsberg: Prosthetic Memory

In “Prosthetic Memory,” Allison Landsberg begins by presenting the idea that cinema and mass media can implant memories in audience members and viewers, reshaping their identity, even though these recollections never truly occurred to them in real life. Landsberg defines these as “memories which do not come from a person’s lived experience in any strict sense”, but are still real nonetheless (175). The media we consume, including film, television, and social media content, can make us feel as if we are living in someone else’s experiences rather than just following their narrative. As Landsberg explains, cinema is “aware of its ability to generate experiences and to install memories of them ― memories which become experiences that film consumers both possess and feel possessed by” (176). Landsberg explained this idea using the film The Thieving Hand (1908), a story that follows a one-armed man who is given an artificial limb that causes him to steal from people against his will (175). Just like how technology can create and amplify our experiences, oftentimes, it is extended too far, where there is a loss of control. In this case, media can write images, feelings, and experiences into our minds that were never ours. Now, our screens can edit our sense of who we are, rewritten by the cultural technologies we consume, whether we like it or not. Especially where the algorithm feeds AI content, Landsberg’s argument that media “implants” memories is a cautionary tale that every image or video we encounter, real or fake, has the possibility to rewire who we think we are. 

Eede: Critical Awareness towards “Extension”

In Extending “Extension”, Eede mainly discusses the relationship between technology and the human being by applying the idea proposed by Marshall McLuhan – technology is the extension of the human being – and uses this as a way to call on the public to perceive technology in a more critical way. 

Eede points out that modern researchers often look at technology under an “external” context: “technologies and humans are seen here as independent entities, and the relation between them—the extension—as an external supplement to both.”(Eede, 156) This approach only leads to two extreme directions in which one side relies on technology blindly while the other side completely rejects it. 

To look at technology in a more practical sense one needs to accept that technology is not only “simple intermediaries” or a tool for humans to use but also acts as a source of influence that co-shapes human beings. To internally approach technology, one has to accept that we have already intertwined with technology, though one should remember to trust their own thinking rather than technology, despite its convenience in many aspects. At the same time, according to Eede, technology is also self-tracking and constantly shifting its position in the human-technological relationship and the boundaries between it and humans. This goes back to Eede’s promotion in critical thinking in a time when everyone needs to have awareness when it comes to treating technology.

Common ground and relations

Eede and Landsburg both made similar statements along with their main ideas when it comes to human-media relations. Eede emphasized on the fact that technology and media can influence and co-shape human beings, and that technology today should be seen as an internal element for humans since they can reflect and intervene with what people think they originally thought. The idea similar, or even can be considered an continual to “extending the mind through technology” can be found in Landsburg’s works, in which he describes how human memories can be influenced by what they watch on different media outlets and so “tricking” the mind to accept them as part of reality – consciously or subconsciously. In both works, the authors try to raise the awareness amongst the public to see media and technology in a more critical way. 

Main differences

While both thinkers see media as a force that is entangled with human experiences, they approach these ideas from different perspectives. Landsberg’s concept of prosthetic memory depicts media entering our bodies and creating emotional memories that are not ours. On the other hand, Eede focuses on media as an entity that is “an extension of ourselves” (151), rather than media being inserted into us. His perspective is loyal to McLuhan’s thinking about media as “technology is an extension of the human being, of human organs, body parts, senses, capabilities, and so on. ” (153). For Eede, media stretches and reshapes our sensory boundaries; it changes the way we move, see, and act in the world.

Landsberg emphasizes how media implants memories and emotions, while Eede is concerned in how media transforms our abilities in perception and our abilities as humans. Lansberg approaches media with more regard for its ability to emotionally penetrate ourselves with new memories, producing empathy and identity through what she calls the “unsettled boundaries between real and simulated ones” (174). In contrast, Eede’s priority in his thinking is not about emotional manipulation but about our loss of understanding of how media shape us while we use them, which is becoming increasingly unclear. Eede mentions technology itself creates a “fog to distort our sight; a blindness we are victim to or, even more precisely, an inability to assess the “why” and the ‘how’ of technologies in an immediate and direct way, at a glance so to speak.” (168). 

Contextualizing in Media Theory

Landsberg and Eede remind us that media are not just things that we consume, because it is a heavy influence on how we think, feel, and behave. We’ve often returned to McLuhan’s idea that “the medium is the message.” Van Den Eede explicitly extends this saying, while Landsberg adds by presenting the implantation of memories and emotion. This shows that modern media can impact us from many directions, both outward and inward.

Even further, Ingold’s mention of correspondence in Making or Gibson’s “education of attention” also applies here. According to Ingold, our perception arises through actively interacting with materials. Then, for Gibson, we observe affordances that invite us to act. Landsberg’s ideas similarly lean toward feeling through film’s affordances, while Van Den Eede’s extensions demand continual adaptation to technology.

Conclusion

Both of the readings emphasized on the importance of critical thinking with media and technology, and in a society filled with advertisements, new technology and implementations of various ideas from billions of people, critical awareness and consideration to accepting these information are indeed of vital importance. Meanwhile, not easily accepting the provided ideas also extends to the researching grounds – taking in the ideas and reminders from Eede and Landsburg, implementing them as an “extension” to our own thoughts and memories entirely without critical consideration is probably not what the authors would like to see, either. Indeed, our knowledge should come from our own interactions with materials, and this should be kept in mind in both interactions with the passages by Eede and Landsburg as well as with media and technology in our daily lives. 

References

Landsberg, Alison. “Prosthetic Memory: Total Recall and Blade Runner.” Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment, edited by Mike Featherstone and Roger Burrows, SAGE Publications, 1995, pp. 175–186.

Van Den Eede, Yoni. “Extending ‘Extension’: A Reappraisal of the Technology-as-Extension Idea through the Case of Self-Tracking Technologies.” Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman, edited by Pieter Vermaas et al., Lexington Books, 2014, pp. 151–164.

Image: Pierznik, Christopher. “Our Brains Can’t Handle Technology.” Medium, 5 June 2019, https://medium.com/the-passion-of-christopher-pierznik-books-rhymes/our-brains-cant-handle-technology-8dfabe90505d

Contributers:

Siming Liao, Aubrey Ventura