Sociable media: Phatic connection in digital art

James J. Hodge

doi:10.1353/pmc.2015.0021

Sociable media: Phatic connection in digital art

James J. Hodge^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

English

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

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

Original language	English (US)
Journal	Postmodern Culture
Volume	26
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1353/pmc.2015.0021
State	Published - Sep 2015

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Cultural Studies
Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Literature and Literary Theory

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Sociable media: Phatic connection in digital art

Abstract

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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