Metavisibility as an Epistemological Figure of the Digital Age: Selfieing and Data Visualization

Chun-yen Chen

《Concentric： Literary and Cultural Studies》 46卷2期 (2020/09) Pp. 139-159

https://doi.org/10.6240/concentric.lit.202009_46(2).0007

摘要

This article argues that selfieing and data visualization, in mutually informative ways, can help us broach the epistemic intelligibility of the digital epoch: knowledge generation not as truth claims, but as effects of visibility. Drawing on Foucault's proposition of visibility in his archaeological approaches to human sciences, this study aims to show that the governing mode of knowledge formation today consists of layers of visibility. I propose to use the concept metavisibility to make sense of the nexus of visibilities instantiated by selfieing and data visualization. This study is intended as a theoretical inquiry rather than an empirical study. The methodological intervention is manifold: first, to respond to contentions that pronounce the diminished relevance of the visual in a world of vibrant multisensory media; second, to dialogue with studies of the problematic of visibility in the digital context; and, third, to critique discursive formulations of digital media that appear complacent about the power of digitized knowledge.

關鍵字

the selfie ； data visualization ； visibility ； metavisibility ； episteme ； the digital age ； Selfiecity

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