Feed-Forward - by Mark B N Hansen (Paperback)

About the Book

Leading media theorist Mark Hansen here explains one of the most important but elusive results of new digital technologies: the expansion of sensibility through micro-computational sensing and the anticipatory, future-directed operation of data-driven media. His thesis is that humans can no longer conceive of themselves as separate, autonomous subjects who consume media or engage with media objects. On the contrary, in a world where computational media directly shape our world without human intervention, our experience is shaped by media "primordially. "From social media and data-mining to passive sensing and environmental microsensors, twenty-first-century media remains largely inaccessible to perceptual consciousness. We move, therefore, through an expanded domain of sensibility that can be accessed only through the new technologies themselves. Hansen concludes that we are in the midst of a reengineering of human experience by way of computational data-gathering and analysis."

Book Synopsis

Even as media in myriad forms increasingly saturate our lives, we nonetheless tend to describe our relationship to it in terms from the twentieth century: we are consumers of media, choosing to engage with it. In Feed-Forward, Mark B. N. Hansen shows just how outmoded that way of thinking is: media is no longer separate from us but has become an inescapable part of our very experience of the world.

Drawing on the speculative empiricism of philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, Hansen reveals how new media call into play elements of sensibility that greatly affect human selfhood without in any way belonging to the human. From social media to data-mining to new sensor technologies, media in the twenty-first century work largely outside the realm of perceptual consciousness, yet at the same time inflect our every sensation. Understanding that paradox, Hansen shows, offers us a chance to put forward a radically new vision of human becoming, one that enables us to reground the human in a non-anthropocentric view of the world and our experience in it.

Review Quotes

"Feed-Forward embarks on a rigorously philosophical appraisal of Whitehead in relation to our contemporary socio-technical milieu and in the process unfolds a remarkable constellation of interlocking theses about human experience. A Hansen book is always an anticipated event, but Feed-Forward is truly extraordinary. It fundamentally alters the terms of the debate about human perception and cognition in twenty-first-century media environments."--Rita Raley, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Feed-Forward is an ambitious and remarkably exciting take on contemporary media read through Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy. Hansen builds an extremely inspiring study that is rich with implications for philosophers, media theorists, and anyone wanting to understand the microtemporal basis of contemporary culture. Feed-Forward opens up a range of fresh ideas."--Jussi Parikka, Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton

"A major contribution to the field. This is a potentially canonic book for specialists in philosophy, ethics, and media studies. . . . Essential."
-- "Choice"

"Feed-Forward is a major work, original and highly important. Hansen's revisionary interpretation of Whitehead's thought is a deep, thorough, and learned one."--Steven Shaviro, Wayne State University

About the Author

Mark B. N. Hansen is professor of literature and media arts and sciences at Duke University, coeditor of Critical Terms for Media Studies, and the author of three books, including Bodies in Code: Interfaces with New Media.