The Quasi-Face of the Cell Phone: Rethinking Alterity and Screens

Wellner, Galit

doi:10.1007/s10746-013-9304-y

Cited by 17 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…The eTool must however be let in. Wellner (2014) calls this trait "becoming mobile," and she relates it to the human participants' capacity to move from a physical to a virtual or augmented space, as well as back and forth between the spaces, and not the least, to be able to maintain a position in more than one space at a given time. We also note that the "fit" of the eTool seems related to this type of mobility; the exemplar above we define as a moment in our research material where the integration of the eTool in the practical therapy context appears to be involving and enabling.…”

Section: From Observation Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More explicitly, our findings shed light on a feature that we have conceptualized as "moving between." This is inspired by Wellner's (2014) contemporary tool analysis, particularly her concept of "becoming mobile." In our analysis, moving back and forth seems to be a skill that both clinician and patient might possess, which we perceive as something that will have an impact on the dynamics of the clinical encounter.…”

Section: Technology Appropriation Is Not a Straightforward Mattermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Embodying digital spaces in a clinical encounter

Blixt

Solbrække²,

Bjorbækmo

2023

P & P

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What is it like to interact in a clinical setting when a technological device is participating? This inquiry was conducted in a primary healthcare setting, with the aim of shedding light on clinicians’ and patients’ experiences regarding the use of a tablet-with-app, intended for a more systematic assessment, as well as electronic registration and storing of patient data. In this paper, we present an account of four experiential exemplars of adopting an eTool in a clinical setting. The “faciality” of the digital device seems to be important to both patients and clinicians, as well as the interaction between them. The “face” can be used for engaging in conversation, addressing awkward topics, communicating, or inviting involvement. The face can also be used for just resting the eyes or lowering the gaze to maintain a low profile during the clinical encounter. Concurrently, the size, the shape, and the backside of the eTool’s face can mediate distance. We expand the notion of “screen sharing” and suggest that humans’ ability to move from one mode to another and embody digital spaces in the clinical encounter seems enhanced by their ability to include the eTool’s face in their interaction. This knowledge can be used in the development of digital tools for teaching, as well as for health professions.

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Section: From Observation Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Technology Appropriation Is Not a Straightforward Mattermentioning

confidence: 99%

Embodying digital spaces in a clinical encounter

Blixt

Solbrække²,

Bjorbækmo

2023

P & P

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“…And does this necessarily entail moral aspects such as pity or charity? According to Wellner (2014), it does not. 31 She investigates how technologies, and especially interactive screen technologies like the smartphone, can indeed question me and elicit responses because they exhibit what she calls a "quasi-face."…”

Section: Technology's Finite Alterity and Responsible Subjectivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

To-Do Is to Be: Foucault, Levinas, and Technologically Mediated Subjectivation

Bergen

Verbeek

2020

Philos. Technol.

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The theory of technological mediation aims to take technological artifacts seriously, recognizing the constitutive role they play in how we experience the world, act in it, and how we are constituted as (moral) subjects. Its quest for a compatible ethics has led it to Foucault's "care of the self," i.e., a transformation of the self by oneself through self-discipline. In this regard, technologies have been interpreted as power structures to which one can relate through Foucaultian "technologies of the self" or ascetic practices. However, this leaves unexplored how concrete technologies can actually support the process of self-care. This paper explores this possibility by examining one such technology: a gamified To-Do list app. Doing so, it first shows that despite the apparent straightforwardness of gamification, confrontation and shame play an important role in how the app motivates me to do better. Second, inspired by Ihde's schema of humantechnology relations, it presents different ways in which the app may confront me with myself. Subsequently, it accounts for the motivation and shame that this technologically mediated confrontation with myself invokes through a Levinasian account of ethical subjectivity. In so doing, it also shows how Levinas' phenomenology implies a responsibility for self-care and how nonhuman, technological others may still call me to responsibility. It concludes with a reflection on the role of gamification in technologically mediated subjectivation and some implications for design.

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“…Interactive technologies tend to extend this quasi-otherness further than others, as they appear to also demand responses from their users. In her postphenomenological analysis of cell phones, Wellner [50] showed how this "demand" for a response constitutes a technological quasi-face, which "acts like a face that requires a response, but is not a face" [50, p. 311]. Rather, it refers to the way a technology appeals to me and invites me to react, respond, and relate to it in a way that shares at least some concrete characteristics with responses to human (or possibly animal) others.…”

Section: Thinking Otherwise About Robotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, what exactly constitutes "humanlike" here remained undefined. However, given that the quasi-face as developed by Wellner [50] does not require technological others to be very humanlike to elicit responses and interaction, and that non-humanoid technologies like productivity apps can call one to responsibility [35], I take the extent to which sex robots can deviate from exactly mimicking human movement, behavior, and form to be an open question. Of course, the sex robot's "expressions" (visually, auditory, and/or physically) have to be apprehensible to its human user if the robot is to serve as a sort of "erotic" sexual partner, but I see no a priori reason to reject the possibility of designing other kinds of robot bodies (e.g., with more abstract shapes and/or different colors and textures) that could still have the expressive capabilities to elicit less one-sided sexual engagements.²³ These recommendations may be both imperfect and incomplete, but they nevertheless demonstrate the potential for designing sexbots otherwise, according to a different regime: one of Eros rather than gratification.²⁴ And this possibility should assuage some of the worries of CASR and those who share them, since it has the potential to make the class of sex robots that trigger the argument from moral degradation significantly smaller.…”

Section: mentioning

confidence: 99%

Love(rs) in the making: Moral subjectivity in the face of sexbots

Bergen

2020

Paladyn, Journal of Behavioral Robotics

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AbstractThis article offers a novel reading of the criticisms of sex robots put forward by the Campaign Against Sex Robots (CASR). Focusing on the implication of a loss of empathy, it structures CASR’s worries as an argument from moral degradation centered around the potential effects on sexbot users’ sexual and moral subjectivity. This argument is subsequently explored through the combined lenses of postphenomenology and the ethical phenomenology of Emmanuel Levinas. In so doing, it describes the type of human-technology relations that sexbots invite, identifying alterity as a central feature. It also highlights how alterity, responsibility, and subjectivity are intimately connected. However, that connection is distinctly different in sexual circumstances, making current versions of Levinasian roboethics largely inapplicable for the ethics of sexbots. To overcome this, the article delves into Levinas’ phenomenology of Eros and identifies voluptuousness as a type of enjoyment of the Other that is different from the enjoyment invited by current sexbots and is compatible with responsibility. Based on this, the article provides examples of how this phenomenology of Eros can inspire the design of future sexbots in ways that alleviate some of CASR’s concerns.

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The Quasi-Face of the Cell Phone: Rethinking Alterity and Screens

Cited by 17 publications

References 10 publications

Embodying digital spaces in a clinical encounter

Embodying digital spaces in a clinical encounter

To-Do Is to Be: Foucault, Levinas, and Technologically Mediated Subjectivation

Love(rs) in the making: Moral subjectivity in the face of sexbots

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