Ways of perceiving,sensory affordances: Media-ecological remarks on subverting sensor datafication

Abstract

Through their focus on counter-practices, Borbach and Kanderske offer valuable methodological inspirations for research on sensor media. Above and beyond a praxeology of subversive action, their suggestions carry a number of additional media-ecological implications that revolve around the incommensurability of sensory affordances in-between human and technological actors in sensor-saturated environments. Who's to say which perceptual topologies are navigated by the numerous semi-autonomous technological actors and sensing devices sharing the same physical space with humans? And, more politically relevant, which ways of perceiving might humans already be exposed to without their awareness? A situated account of counter-practices could thus usefully be extended toward a form of interface critique that can help to surface asymmetries of perception in co-habited media ecologies and support to exploit them toward political-activist aims.