Pandemic vectors and the algorithmic modulation of the possible

Authors

  • Danichi Hausen Mizoguchi Universidade Federal Fluminense - UFF, Brazil
  • Leandro Jose Carmelini Fafa Borges ederal University of Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ, Brazil

Keywords:

Pandemic, Algorithms, Modulation

Abstract

Three main strategies of restraining COVID-19 – lockdown, tracking, and contact tracing – share what seems to be the most generalizable mark of our time: algorithmic mediation. In parallel, silicon technologies are also advancing. If indeed, we have never been so digital, we suspect that the suspension caused by the pandemic opens up vectors of convergence with the current technological trends, and gives clues that we may become even more digital. The text is organized into two parts: 1. The face and the screen, and 2. The body and the street. In the first part, we consider a trend towards domesticity intensification, by putting in relation the lockdown and recent investments made by Facebook in Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality headsets. In the second part, we discuss the algorithmic leading of urban trajectories, by bringing together the notions of tracking, contact tracing, and Kinto – the Toyota-owned intelligent urban mobility company. In both cases, either in the relationship between face and screen or between body and street, what seems to be at stake is the algorithmic modulation of the possible.

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Author Biographies

Danichi Hausen Mizoguchi, Universidade Federal Fluminense - UFF, Brazil

He has a bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degree in Psychology. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Graduate Program in Psychology at Universidade Federal Fluminense - UFF, Brazil. He researches topics such as subjectivity and the urban experience, subjectivity and microfascisms, cross-cutting issues between art, clinic, and politics, and contemporary modulations of power.

Leandro Jose Carmelini Fafa Borges, ederal University of Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ, Brazil

He has a degree in Biology and a master's degree in Communication and Culture. He develops doctoral research in the Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at the School of Communication at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ, Brazil, within the line of research Media and Sociocultural Mediations. His research topics are the city, transport, algorithms, cognition, and subjectivity.

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Published

2020-12-19

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 21 (2020): V!21 We Have Never Been so Digital

Section

Ágora