Moskatova O (2020)
Publication Language: English
Publication Type: Journal article, Original article
Publication year: 2020
Book Volume: 3
Pages Range: 282-305
DOI: 10.6092/issn.2724-2463/12260
Open Access Link: https://img-journal.unibo.it/article/view/12260/12330
Media theory usually foregrounds transmission, storage, and processing as elementary media operations neglecting the role media play for protecting living beings. However, the biopolitical and discursive reactions to the spread of Covid-19 have evidenced how protection and establishing safe distances can be implicated in the media process of transmission, which viral infection basically is. Taking the window photos reacting to the pandemic isolation in early 2020 as a starting point, I propose to examine the dynamics of distance and proximity by focusing on the protective functionalities of small networked screens. Today, networked screens such as laptops, tablets, smartphones, or television dominate our everyday and personal media use. Their omnipresence and our permanent attachment to them became even stronger during the Corona crisis, giving the screens new political significance. Placed between the self and the world, screens are able to co-create protective topologies of distance and, thus, to fulfill immunitary functions in addition to the communicative and connective ones. In order to elaborate on this double operativity, I will draw on etymological, media archaeological, and media theoretical understandings of screens as protective shields, barriers, and filters and combine them with philosophical perspectives on immunization that were developed by Roberto Esposito and Peter Sloterdijk.
APA:
Moskatova, O. (2020). Networked Screens: Topologies of Distance and Media Regime of Immunization. img journal, 3, 282-305. https://dx.doi.org/10.6092/issn.2724-2463/12260
MLA:
Moskatova, Olga. "Networked Screens: Topologies of Distance and Media Regime of Immunization." img journal 3 (2020): 282-305.
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