Rethinking Affordance

Abstract

Responding to the continued, accelerating rise of algorithmic culture, this presentation re-conceptualizes the concept of ‘affordance’ for the digital age, with a focus on theorizing artistic, practice-based interventions. We are specifically interested in the critical historical and contemporary role that media artists have played in shaping the uses, potentials, and limits of emerging digital technologies. Critical perspectives on this subject have not been developed with regard to the concept of affordance, which has not been adequately ‘digitized.’ Our guiding questions in doing so include the following: How does the work of media artists correspond to established understandings of ‘affordance’ as those phenomenological properties of an object that imply, enable, and constrain potential uses and perceived functions? What role have artists played in emphasizing – or challenging – the constraints and potentials implied in the notion of affordance? How have technological, economical, or legal regimes limited perceptions of affordance within the throes of technological innovation? What critical or politically-motivated regimes of affordance can artistic experimentation yield in response?