Prompted by Kelly Sears
On Medium: “Discussing Technology & the Body,” by Kristin Kirsch Feldkamp, in response to Tilt West Roundtable: Technology & the Body.
Written Prompt
In this roundtable, we’ll discuss and survey how technology shapes, mediates and distorts possibilities of perception and transmission of our bodies and ourselves. How do mobile lenses and image sharing applications, online personas and avatars, performed and augmented reality and corporately archived and marketed memories, among others, fracture, empower and damage our physical, psychic and digital existences? In what ways do phenomenon such as cyberbullying, transgender beauty tutorials, microcelebrity, targeted advertising that discriminates by gender and race, and selfie dysmorphic disorder coexist, foster and subvert each other? Looking specifically at contemporary means of usage and exchange, what are some potentials and obstacles present in the producing of identity and agency? What tools and tactics concern and intrigue you as we move further into this strengthening relationship between the body and technology?
—Kelly Sears
Readings
Alice Marwick, “Instafame: Luxury Selfies in the Attention Economy”
Sherry Turkle, “Introduction: Alone Together”
danah boyd, “Participating in the Always-On Lifestyle”
About the Prompter
Kelly Sears is an experimental animator that cuts up and collages imagery from American culture and politics. Her work draws on documentary and parafictional forms of storytelling, shifting between the official and unconfirmed. Her award-winning films have screened at festivals such as Sundance, South by Southwest, American Film Institute, Los Angeles Film Festival, Off+Camera Film Festival, Poland, Festival International de Films de Femmes de Créteil, France, and Tricky Women in Austria. She’s also had retrospective programs of her short work at Anthology Film Archives in NYC, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Portland Art Museum, and the SF Cinematheque. Sears is currently an Assistant Professor of Film Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she teaches advanced filmmaking, animation, experimental documentary, and media archeology and is a co-editor for NOW! A Journal of Urgent Praxis.