Mobile Technosoma: some phenomenological reflections on itinerant media devices

• Main Author: Ingrid Richardson
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Open Humanities Press 2005-01-01
• Series: Fibreculture Journal
• Subjects: mobile communications; mobile media and phenomenology; technosoma
• Online Access: http://six.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-032-mobile-technosoma-some-phenomenological-reflections-on-itinerant-media-devices/

Today’s handheld devices are becoming increasingly multifunctional, portable and interactive technospaces which enfold (and unfold) an assortment of media forms. This transformation requires a critical approach that considers mobile media as more than telecommunications tools, but also as hybrid new media interfaces. This article presents some initial thoughts pre-empting a larger research project on the phenomenology of mobile media. From a phenomenological perspective, each body-tool relation induces its own technosoma, or specific ways of ‘being-with-equipment’ in a Heideggerian sense; in this conceptual framework, I explore some of the medium specific and intercorporeal effects of the mobile phone.