Abstract
It is not uncommon for contemporary new media users to accrue an inept collection of obsolete cell phones, regarded as protagonists of respective mobile phone eras. This material, archived collection not only reflects the technological demands of the user, but serves as an analogy that a shift in the world of artifacts is accompanied by a simultaneous shift in users’ practices (p. 56). In this way, mobile media are now characterized as postphenomenological—positioning a technological entity to mediate a worldview for the user. Galit P. Wellner, an Assistant Professor at the NB Haifa School of Design at Tel Aviv University, has interrogated this approach to technology in A Postphenomenological Inquiry of Cell Phones—arguably the first investigation of mobile media through this critical philosophy of technology.
Extending her doctoral dissertation, Wellner’s mobile media research relinquishes a Husserlian trajectory, pursuing an investigation “back to the things themselves” (p. 141). Her definition of postphenomenology, one that is heavily inspired by her supervisor Don Ihde, is genealogical in nature, examining changes in the relations between humans, technologies, and the world (p. 11). The book is fittingly divided into two parts; the first provides an overview of four historical variations of the cell phone, and the second takes up a series of invariants in this evolution (p. 17).
Wellner’s historical variations originate with “Talking Heads,” the dominance of cellular technology in voice communication. The second variation, “Texting-at-Hand,” is informed by Levinas’s (1995) notion of the face and Ihde’s (1990) concept of the quasi-other (p. 142), as it recounts the cell phone’s text-based entities. Mobiles of the third variation, “The Kingdom of Multimedia Applications,” remediate (Bolter & Grusin, 1999) everyday practices in the substitution of traditional objects for their digital-app equivalents, for example, keys, maps, tickets, compass, flashlight, etc. Grounded in new embodiment and hermeneutic relations (p. 69) the fourth variation, “Sensory Exploration,” offers a new mobility experience, namely through augmented reality in both theory and practice.
Taking up three of the cell phone’s invariants, the second half of the book offers an effective overview of the four historical variations. Akin to dominant literature in mobile media, the first invariant, the “wall window,” details the ways in which cell phones synchronously separate users from their immediate environments (the wall) and link them to remote spaces (through the window) where content or other users exist (p. 87). The second invariant is grounded in Levinas’s (1995) mediations and postphenomenological alterity relations, arguing that if technology is a “quasi-other,” then the screen performs as a “quasi-face” (p. 17). Based on the work of Stiegler (1998) who refers to tools as a prosthesis and as a memory recorder, the third invariant is known as the “memory prosthesis” (p. 17). It is critical to note, that as a mobile media scholar with an eye to socially marginalized populations, it was of concern to encounter a discussion of prosthesis and embodiment grounded by the example of a “peg-leg” (pp. 130, 134)—a dated 19th-century term considered to be offensive by contemporary standards. While this may be a historical or overlooked semantic choice, it feels ill-suited here.
The final chapter of the book makes an attempt to establish one possible “invariant of invariants,” (p. 152) entitled “becoming-mobile.” Influenced by Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) notion of becoming, this invariant conceptualizes conditions in which the physical act of movement, from one space to another does not exist; this is exemplified in phone calls, or when engaging with an app.
While Wellner makes the ongoing assertion that the transformation of artifacts to apps is eventually a change in the world (p. 79), the proclamation is oftentimes vague as no specific software entities are investigated—particularly in the discussion of augmented embodiment (p. 133). In this way, there are caveats of Wellner’s manuscript that echo Manovich’s (2014) assertion that “software is the message,” but the opportunity to make those connections explicit is often missed. This may be deliberate, however, so as to not date the text. That said, the strength of Wellner’s writing is demonstrated in her evocative explications through which the reader is able to visualize her contextualized arguments.
A quick scan of the comprehensive bibliography points toward only six female authors who have made interventions into (post)phenomenology; evidence that Wellner’s work is both a rarity and a necessity in such a burgeoning field. This book reflects and demonstrates an expanding reach in the philosophy of technology. Robust and layered, Wellner’s A Postphenomenological Inquiry of Cell Phones could serve as a critical text for expanding the intersection of phenomenology and mobile media, highlighting a relationship between cell phones, users, and the environment.