The auditory metaphor of the “croaking frogs” (Tromp 2016) that I cited earlier signals that self-acting or self-transforming artifacts such as ‘AWE Goosebumps’ can be ex- perienced as having lifelike or, in this case, animal-like features. This wearing experi- ence aligns with recent approaches in both postphenomenological and new materialist thinking characterized by an explicit decentering of the human and deconstruction of classic dichotomies such as human-nonhuman, object-subject, and nature-culture oppositions. Although such approaches are not exclusive to postphenomenology and new materialisms6, I consider these two schools of thought particularly suitable and relevant for understanding and conceptualizing the materiality of techno-fashion. Despite their different roots and research objects, the fundamental argument of new materialist and postphenomenological accounts of materiality is that nonhumans and humans should be considered symmetrically. Within postphenomenological theory, Ihde’s concept of alterity relations and Verbeek’s theory of technological mediation most explicitly voice this argument for getting beyond human-centricity and subjec- tivism (Ihde 1990; Verbeek 2015). Alterity relations – the third type of human-technol- ogy relations that Ihde identifies in addition to hermeneutic and embodiment relations – concern relations to or with technology wherein the technology is experienced as alterity, as a “quasi-other” (1990: 98, original emphasis). As Verbeek explains, the term quasi- other her points out that, although we often tend to project human properties onto technologies that seem behave as if they are another living subject (e.g., robots), they can never be a genuine other (Verbeek 2005a: 127). I believe this idea of alterity relations is applicable to techno-fashion in the sense that it explains why we may have the eerie yet fascinating experience of encountering a ‘quasi-other’ when wearing or observing self-transforming and self-acting artifacts such as ‘AWE Goosebumps.’ The second postphenomenological notion of value to studying techno-fashion is the notion of material (i.e., technological) mediation. As mentioned several times within this dissertation, a postphenomenological understanding of materiality (and technol- ogy in particular) involves recognizing the non-neutral and mediating role of objects
6 Other prominent accounts of non-anthropocentric and non-dichotomous understandings of objects or things can be found in, amongst others, Actor Network theory in the social sciences (Latour 1996, 2005); Object-Oriented Ontology and Speculative Realism in philosophy (Bryant 2014; Bryant, Srnicek and Harman eds. 2011; Harman 2010); anthropology (Ingold 2011; Miller 2005, 2010; Olsen 2010); and Human Computer Interaction (Giaccardi, Speed, Cila & Caldwell 2016). These accounts overlap with postphenomenological and new materialist approaches in the sense that they propagate a post-anthropocentric way of thinking objects and materiality but there are also some clashes, most notably between OOO/Speculative Realism and new materialisms (Åsberg, Thiele, and Van der Tuin 2015).
in human perception and life (Ihde 1990; Verbeek 2005a). Postphenomenology, there- fore, could be considered a ‘material phenomenology’ (Ihde 2003b: 21; cf. 2010: iii). “Materiality,” Verbeek explains, “is no blank projection screen for human interpreta- tions, but plays an active role in our technological culture” (2005b). Taken together, the notion of alterity relations and material mediation underscore the fact that in situa- tions of mediation, human beings are not simply ‘extended’ with technological artifacts (Kiran 2015). Rather, technologies help to constitute what it means to be a human being (Verbeek 2012: 393). This highlights the ways in which human beings – be it wearers or observers – and their experiences are co-shaped by technological mediations. As ‘AWE Goosebumps’ mimics and amplifies goosebumps, a phenomenon normally reserved for the human skin, it reflects on what it means to have a body and creates an exchange of material qualities between a human and a nonhuman being.
The postphenomenological conceptions of alterity and material mediation recognize that human and nonhuman matter and object and subjects cannot simply be under- stood as two opposing poles but interfere and mix. It does not, however, yet give up the modernist subject-object distinction entirely (Verbeek 2005b). It does not distance it- self from humanist values but does seem to make an attempt at formulating a post–hu- manist theory in the sense that it gets rid of the primacy of the ‘pure’ human subject and replaces it with a human subject that embodies all kinds of technological objects (ibid.). In this endeavor to rethink the human subject in tandem with the non-human matter, postphenomenology crosses paths with new materialist explorations of “how matter is thought and where agency resides” (St. Pierre, Jackson, and Mazzei 2016: 100).
The difference between the postphenomenological and new materialist position in my view resides in the fact that new materialisms rethink matter in ways more radical, critical, and ethico-political than postphenomenology (Healy and Schlunke 2015). New materialisms’ all-encompassing reconceptualization of materiality, I believe, can add a more radically post-anthropocentric and post-humanist approach to postphenomeno- logical theory. Not unlike the postphenomenological perspective, the new materialist orientation “is post-humanist in the sense that it conceives of matter itself as lively or as exhibiting agency” (St. Pierre, Jackson, and Mazzei 2016: 101). New materialisms, however, go much further in decentering the human subject, critically unraveling con- temporary subjectivity through doing radically interdisciplinary research (Van der Tuin et al. 2013: 3). In turn, I want to argue, postphenomenology can complement the ab- stract and deeply philosophical approach of new materialisms, with an empirical re- search methodology based on concrete technological artifacts.
Sensoree, ‘AWE Goosebumps’ (2015) Kristin Neidlinger and Edwin Dertien. Photography by Elena Kulikova © Sensoree