White shows that despite the onscreen promise of empowerment and
coherence (through depictions of materiality that structure the
experience), fragmentation and confusion are constant aspects of
Internet spectatorship. She analyses spectatorship in multi-user
object-oriented settings (MOOs) by examining the textual process of
looking and gazing, contrasts the experiences of the women's
webcam spectator and operator, describes intentional technological
failures in net art, and considers ways in which traditional
conceptions of artistry, authorship, and production techniques
persist in Internet and computer settings (as seen in the creation
of virtual environment avatars and in digital imaging art).
Finally, she analyses the physical and psychic pain described by
male programmers in Internet forums as another counternarrative to
the common tale of the empowered user. Spectatorship, White argues,
not only affects the way specific interfaces are understood but
also helps shape larger conceptions of self and society.
Rethinking the interface: how the Internet/computer spectator is
engaged, rendered, and regulated; theoretical models and case
studies that range from text-based and graphical communication
settings and women's webcams to male programmer's physical
and psychic pain.
Internet and computer users are often represented onscreen as
active and empowered--as in AOL's striding yellow figure and
the interface hand that appears to manipulate software and
hypertext links. In The Body and the Screen Michele White suggests
that users can more properly be understood as spectators rendered
and regulated by technologies and representations, for whom looking
and the mediation of the screen are significant aspects of
engagement. Drawing on apparatus and feminist psychoanalytic film
theories, art history, gender studies, queer theory, critical race
and postcolonial studies, and other theories of cultural
production, White conceptualizes Internet and computer
spectatorship and provides theoretical models that can be employed
in other analyses. She offers case studies and close visual and
textual analysis of the construction of spectatorship in different
settings.
White shows that despite the onscreen promise of empowerment and
coherence (through depictions of materiality that structure the
experience), fragmentation and confusion are constant aspects of
Internet spectatorship. She analyzes spectatorship in multi-user
object-oriented settings (MOOs) by examining the textual process of
looking and gazing, contrasts the experiences of the women's
webcam spectator and operator, describes intentional technological
failures in net art, and considers ways in which traditional
conceptions of artistry, authorship, and production techniques
persist in Internet and computer settings (as seen in the creation
of virtual environment avatars and in digital imaging art).
Finally, she analyzes the physical and psychic pain described by
male programmers in Internet forums as another counternarrative to
the common tale of the empowered user. Spectatorship, White argues,
not only affects the way specific interfaces are understood but
also helps shape larger conceptions of self and society.
Review text:
'The literature on new media is abundant, but few humanities
scholars have directly interrogated the specific kinds of practices
and aesthetics that the Internet makes possible. The Body and the
Screen does precisely this. White's sustained focus on
technological mediation, informed by feminist and queer-theory
approaches, makes a significant and needed contribution to the
literature.'
--Ken Hillis, Associate Professor of Media Studies, The University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
'The Body and the Screen is a highly nuanced critical
examination of the junction of the virtual and the real. By
engaging cyberspace and the body together (and by not participating
in the game of their free disassociation, as many media theorists
do), White offers important arguments for the materiality of the
experience of new media. This much-needed book marks an important
step forward in critical studies of new media and the
Internet.'
--Steve Jones, Department of Communication, University of Illinois
at Chicago
"The literature on new media is abundant, but few humanities scholars have directly interrogated the specific kinds of practices and aesthetics that the internet makes possible. *The Body and the Screen* does precisely this. White's sustained focus on technological mediation, informed by feminist and queer-theory approaches, makes a significant and needed contribution to the literature."--Ken Hillis, Associate Professor of Media Studies, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill " The Body and the Screen is a highly nuanced critical examination of the junction of the virtual and the real. By engaging cyberspace and the body together (and by not participating in the game of their free disassociation, as many media theorists do), White offers important arguments for the materiality of the experience of new media. This much-needed book marks an important step forward in critical studies of new media and the Internet." Steve Jones , Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Chicago "*The Body and the Screen* is a highly nuanced critical examination of the junction of the virtual and the real. By engaging cyberspace and the body together (and by not participating in the game of their free disassociation, as many media theorists do), White offers important arguments for the materiality of the experience of new media. This much-needed book marks an important step forward in critical studies of new media and the Internet."--Steve Jones, Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Chicago
Michele White is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Tulane University.
