Sensations of History: Animation and New Media Art by James J. Hodge (review)

A reflection on our experience of history and the historical sensation in the digital age, this book opens by rebutting two widely accepted claims: first, the idea that digital media represent as well as perform the end of history (they are accused of killing our sense of the past, if not the past itself, and their spread strengthens the impression that we are living in a kind of eternal present); second, the idea that the complexity of digital media, which may at first sight overwhelm and frighten us, is something that can be overcome and undone by sustained efforts to open the black box (as if the opacity of digital culture, too big and too difficult to understand, could be superseded by a common pursuit of clarity, openness and transparency). In both cases, Hodge’s position goes radically against the grain. His book is an attempt to stress instead the continuity and permanence of the historical experience, more particularly the new forms this experience and this sensation have been taking in the digital age, not by opening the sealed container of our computers, but by taking seriously the very impenetrability of our contacts with software programs, digital equipment and the world of logarithms and calculation.

As the vocabulary of the previous paragraph immediately underlines— “experience,” “sensation,” “contact,” etc.—the conceptual framework of James J. Hodge is phenomenology, mainly the line of thinking represented by, on the one hand, Heidegger, from whom the author borrows the fundamental definition of history as “already there” (the world as well as history are in a certain sense ahead of use: We move forward into a world that has been shaped by previous experiences and that contains traces of the past) and, on the other hand, Husserl and Stiegler, whose work prioritizes memory and the role of writing (although Stiegler’s take on writing is less idealistic, less instrumentalist, in short very critical of the technology of writing and writing as technology, than in the case of Husserl, who considers writing a mere instrument of cognitive reactualization of the past).

By experience and sensation of history, the author understands the way in which traces of the past become visible before being turned into certain discourses on the past (this is “experience”) and the way in which our embodied contact with the world tries to find a balance between a purely bodily reaction to this input and certain ideas on how to make sense of these reactions (this is “sensation”). Technological opacity, which predates digital technology, is a key factor in our experience of history— not because it hinders or destroys traditional forms of experience (at least not in general; it should be stressed however that Hodge does not directly discuss the problem of cultural erosion and loss of memory, which may be a pity), but because the appearance of new digital technologies we can no longer fully grasp, that have now developed a life of their own, that we are no longer capable of using as mere tools, engender new forms of experience of time and history.

Hodge examines these new forms of historical sensation and experience from two points of view, which he succeeds in seamlessly combining: philosophy and new media art. The philosophical background of the study, which the author manages to explain in very clear terms, is always accompanied by the close reading of a certain number of experimental digital creations, generally two or three per chapter. The origin of these case studies is very diverse: the author analyzes, for instance, games (the Cookie Clicker by Julien Orteil), literary works (overboard by John Cayley), installation art (1st Light by Paul Chan) and video (The Memory of a Landscape by Tatjana Marusic). The limited number of key examples also guarantees the possibilities of careful cross-referencing, which gives the book a solid unity.

Through the analyses, two major new experiences...