Techninė Anestezija, Aparatas, Žaidimas
Technical Anesthesia, Apparatus, Play

Summary/Abstract: Research in media studies shows that media not only extend our sense-organs via some established mediated contact but also protects a subject from painful sensations through some kind of anesthetic intervention. The development of media seems to follow a general tendency to move away from so-called “haptic violence” toward a more and more radical visualization and virtualization of the human environment. In the post-industrial society this tendency is supported by apparatuses that are gradually becoming more and more independent from human control. Apparatuses provide comfort and safety to a subject, but at the same time, they also degrade a subject to the status of a mere functionary, or in other words, they simply subjugate subjects to the function of the apparatus. According to critical media theory, one of the ways for a subject to emancipate herself from an apparatus would be to engage in a play with it and to move freely between two communication spheres of linear writing and of surface image.

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