300299 Forms of presence and distance in interaction and communication (S) (WiSe 2017/2018)

The current concept of communication tends to implicitly assume a condition of shared presence of participants, who are in the same place at the same time and interact predominantly in oral form (accompanied by various paralinguistic and proxemic components). In fact, however, the notion of communication is much wider, including since the spread of writing articulated forms of relationship between people in different spaces at different times. We read texts written by people we never met and possibly dead for centuries, who can also be completely anonymous. And we can write for unknown interlocutors, who might be in unpredictable contexts.
Sociological, semiotic and cultural science research has long been studying the diverse forms of absence and presence in communication. In particular, the concepts of Niklas Luhmann’s Systems Theory allows to study communication independently of the thoughts of participants - which are not neglected, but acquire on the contrary a strong autonomy.
The most recent developments in algorithmic mediated communication provide unprecedented challenges. Who and where is the communication partner in the interaction with self-learning algorithms? The program has been designed by someone and uses materials provided by people, but programmers and sources of information do not know and cannot predict the results provided by algorithms. What forms of presence and participation are realized in digital communication? Which concepts are adequate to describe them and to provide guidance for projects in human / machine interaction?
The workshop is articulated in three, 6-hour sessions. The first part of each day will be devoted to discussing and commenting on the literature listed in the syllabus, to clarify the background and familiarize participants with the concepts. In the second part of each session we will adopt a studio format in which participants will verify and test the scope and utility of these concepts for the practice of human / machine interaction programming. The reading list for the seminar and the detailed seminar program will be announced to the participants by the end of August.
10 November 2017. Face-to-face communication:
- Paul Watzlawick, Janet Helmick Beavin, Don D. Jackson 1967 (and later). Chapter 2 in Pragmatics of human communication: a study of interactional patterns, pathologies, and paradoxes. New York - London : Norton & Company.
- Erving Goffman 1959 (and later). Introduction. In The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY : Doubleday & Co.

17 November 2017. Distant communication:
- Walter J. Ong 1982 (and later). Chapters 3 and 5 in Orality and literacy : the technologizing of the word. London - New York : Methuen.

24 November 2017. Privacy/publicity in anonymous communication
- Eli Pariser 2011. The filter bubble : what the Internet is hiding from you. London : Viking, pp. 1-20; 47-107.

Bibliography

Background reading for all sessions:
- Niklas Luhmann 1995. Was ist Kommunikation? Pp. 109-120 in Soziologische Aufklärung 6. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.