Brian Massumi speaks in the video interview below (which purports to have been recorded in 2001?!) about the ways in which we might want to think about ‘relation’ rather than ‘interaction’ when considering the design and use of (digital) media. Its interesting to see how much the ‘neural/neurological’ is threaded throughout Massumi’s argument – a condition of that moment in philosophy perhaps…
In particular, for me, Massumi’s proposition of attempting to design for ‘a-modal’ perception is intriguing”¦ sort of like designing for what might be something like ‘nonrepresentational interactivity'(?). The sense of indeterminate relations that Massumi elaborates in this sense is interesting”¦ Erin Manning’s more recent work, especially in Always More Than One, compliments and advances some of this perhaps…
Also, the conceptualisation of (affective) relationality that Massumi describes resonates with recent work in human geography around ‘affective atmospheres‘, in particular in the work of James Ash – especially in his forthcoming book “The Interface Envelope”.
All sorts of interesting stuff, more than I can précis here(!) so worth watching the video:
Via Synthetic Zero.