Reflecting on the question of media, this paper attempts to bridge the gap between attention and distraction in Bernard Stiegler and Walter Benjamin’s respective philosophies. Based on Stiegler’s philosophical theory, this paper will demonstrate, on the one hand, how harmful the destruction of attention, i.e. deficit hyperactivity disorder (Mattew, Citation2012), can be to intergenerational relationships which is constructed of retentions including tertiary retention, and the other hand, how Stiegler’s theory is too exclusively focused upon ‘Generation M,’ that is children with (...) hyper attention. We shall also analyze Benjamin’s arguments regarding distraction, a state he never condemns because he finds new political possibilities there. Based on them, this paper focuses on German educator’s arguments on film in 1910s–1920s and Azuma’s arguments regarding Otaku. German educators find distraction and deep attention in film for education. This coexistence of distraction and deep attention in film has the political potential to overcome aestheticization of politics by totalitarian Fascist regimes. As Lee argued, attention gives children unexpected creativity for teachers (Lee, Citation2018). On the other hand, Azuma analyzes Otaku’s work as a new type of subjectivity through the consideration of new media, Nico Nico douga. For Azuma, Otaku is inescapably linked to media such as anime, video games, and social media. From this perspective, he describes how blind identification with deep attention is destroyed by a mixture of commentators on the screen and comments that criticize the commentators. In Nico Nico douga, distraction is not disorder but self-reflection. (shrink)

In this dialogue, Hiroki Azuma discusses with Yuk Hui about the perception of technology in Japan after the defeat in the Second World War, from the Kyoto School to the postmodern critics, and the ambivalent conflicts between the modern and the tradition. The postmodern culture has a different signification in Japan than in the West as well as in other parts of Asia. Azuma documents the rise of the Otaku culture in Japan, and calls them “database animals,” a thesis (...) that he formulated through his reading of Alexandre Kojève’s end of man and the absorption of the human subject into the technological world. (shrink)

This article considers the case for a theory of the queer object that focuses on its pliability – an object which operates queerly to amplify and elaborate the context in which it appears. It looks at the case of the altered book covers that Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton circulated through the Islington Public Library, activities for which the men were convicted and incarcerated. It considers their activities as versions of “trolling” and of otaku database fixation. It argues that (...) rather than simply disrupt the circulation of library books the men introduced queer objects to the library that facilitated and fostered new and more engaged understandings of the library’s collection of book objects. It reads the covers for the ways in which they connect otherwise disparate and neglected instances of texts with a virtual database of images and concepts that foster new readings of them and advance a new meaning for queer engagement with archives, libraries, and databases. (shrink)

By revisiting Gilles Deleuze's notion of the virtual, this work examines what the virtual world means for our identity and intimacy. We sketch three effects of the virtual world: 1) the complete disintegration of public-private boundary; 2) the emerging performativity of virtual identities; 3) the destabilization of our ontology. From public life to multiplayer online role-playing games, we show the changing meaning of play in various contexts: performing, acting, and becoming. Following Richard Sennett's dramaturgical perspective of the public Man, we (...) see people proactively perform the image to construct the real-world identity. Then in the video games, players choose a virtual identity to act in the game world, transforming it into a liminal space where continued identity transitions become possible. We analyze several cases, including Otherkin and Otaku subculture, to argue that virtual identity and community can bring ontological indeterminacy and propose a program that coexists with otherness. (shrink)