With the ubiquity of the Internet and the overwhelming number of screens that mediate our daily practices, the predominance of the image in daily life is indisputable. The image’s omnipresence has guided countless academic works focused on the visual. For example, visual studies and specialties such as visual anthropology highlight the ethnographic value of images, which, analog or digital alike, have become powerful vehicles for the construction of knowledge (Zirión, 2015; Gómez Cruz, 2012). However, given the predominance of the visual, we have neglected research regarding other senses; this gap widens even more if we consider its intersection with digital studies.
This post explores the relevance of studying the senses, particularly hearing and touch, from a digital anthropological perspective, taking advantage of the vast offer of audiovisual and transmedia content that already exists on the Internet: socio-digital platforms and streaming services. I do not intend to reach conclusive ideas, but rather to engage in a reflective exercise based on this line of analysis. To do so, I will draw on a series of specific examples that I have collected over the past few years and that have inspired the formulation of this proposal.
Evoking Sensations from a Distance
Throughout history, humanity has sought to transmit sensations remotely, overcoming temporal or geographical distances. To achieve this, it has devices such as the written word; pictorial styles that use expressive brushstrokes to represent movement and certain colors to evoke cold or heat; photography with its games of light and shadow; and cinema, with ever more realistic special effects. Musical and audio production work toward this goal, with sophisticated processes aiming to preserve and emulate sound fidelity to the highest degree, enveloping the listener as if they were in the studio. The list also includes the Internet, along with a wide variety of platforms and devices that have become ubiquitous, mediating most practices in our daily lives (Gomez Cruz, 2022), including the relentless pursuit of evoking sensations from a distance.
Hearing/Touch
In recent years, I have come across websites, services, and content on the Internet that aim to stimulate one or more senses simultaneously to produce direct effects on the body, beyond mere perception. Perhaps the clearest example is ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) videos, which have gained popularity in recent years due to the realism with which they induce sensations through binaural recordings. Through soft and repetitive sounds that emulate the touch of an object on the head, ears, or face, ASMR videos can provoke physiological responses, such as tingling in the scalp or neck and goosebumps along the back (Lohaus et al., 2023). A notable example is the video “Your Oddly Specific Trigger Requests for Extra Sleepy Tingles” by ASMR artist Zeitgeist—the three-hour compilation of varied sounds, when listened to with headphones, inevitably gives you goosebumps. The practice is widespread, with large communities of users on Facebook, Reddit, and YouTube, who, seeking relief from ailments such as insomnia, anxiety, and depression, finding relief in ASMR videos and the “braingasms” produced by these contents. According to Lewkowich (2022, p.125) some of these users became enthusiasts of ASMR after listening to the soothing tone of Bob Ross while he painted on public television in the 80s.
Hearing/Imagination
Although ASMR videos have the greatest affordance to stimulate the sense of touch through hearing and sight, I have found other content that also evokes cozy atmospheres, like temporally distant dreamscapes and sharing an intimate moment at home, just with the mere panning of sounds and some muffled noises in the background.
The YouTube channel “Nemo’s Dreamscapes” builds atmospheres based on specific scenes inaccessible due to the temporal and geographical distance that separates us. The video, “Oldies playing in another room and it’s raining,” for example, transports viewers into a nighttime landscape in 1920s Paris. This and other dreamscapes on the channel are composed of music from the early decades of the 20th century, along with sounds that emulate light rain, sporadic thunder, or smooth noises seemingly coming from the next room. Unlike ASMR videos, the recordings do not necessarily aim to elicit a physiological response but rather an emotional one, seducing the ear to stimulate imagination and provoke a sensation of tranquility associated with cozy scenes. The goal is to evoke a peaceful atmosphere for several hours. The effect is also achieved through looped animations that accompany the dreamscapes in the video, such as the warm scene of Duchess and O’Malley from The Aristocats watching the Eiffel Tower from their window while it rains.
While “Nemo’s Dreamscapes” allows users to enter faraway imaginaries, Terrell Davis (Mintybongwater on Instagram) creates content that permits his viewers to share in the intimacy of the quotidian. Davis is an Instagram content creator who calls himself a dispenser of good vibes. During the SARS-CoV-2 lockdown, he began sharing prerecorded videos in which he addressed someone from his audience, an imagined user as if he or she was right there with him. He would ask how their morning was going while preparing an herbal or fruity infusion for them to drink as they started their day. Once the infusion was ready, he would place it on the table, always warning them to avoid burns. Then, he would gift them a quartz crystal for their energy needs and a plant suited to their personality, giving precise instructions on watering and care. Finally, Terrell would approach the camera, opening his arms to lovingly bid farewell to the imagined viewer with a warm consensual hug and best wishes. This video-ritual would happen again at night, this time with a relaxing infusion to prepare the imaginary viewer for bedtime.
The above examples stand out for their clear intention to transmit sensations, their evocative power, or their attempt to bridge geographical and temporal distances, expanding the possibility of “being there” without the need for physical displacement. Technological mediations like these permit the embodiment of sensations that, to some extent, reproduce reality, such that by emulating it, we achieve tangible physiological responses. What could be more real than goosebumps triggered by a digitally mediated stimulus?
Headphones are a central tool for exploring ASMR content. Image by Unsplash.
Digital Mediation of the Senses: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Technology and Culture
This is just one example of what we could explore in greater depth by drawing on insights from the anthropology of the senses to better understand what “being human” (Ingold, 2020) means in a moment when the Internet is embedded in every practice and human experience, including perception and the sensory world (Gómez Cruz, 2022; Hine, 2015). Likewise, an expanded vision of the anthropology of the senses creates space to examine how cognitive processes traditionally studied by psychology, such as imagination and memory, are disrupted. For instance, the evocations that Nemo’s Dreamscapes seeks to stimulate encourage playful exercises of imagination and memory that activate cultural repertoires fostered by cultural industries for decades, like the atmosphere of an early 20th-century Parisian night.
This lens also provides an opportunity to revisit classic theoretical and analytical categories from anthropology such as play (Huizinga, 1980) and performance (Shechner, 2020; Butler, 2007), which deserve nuanced consideration in light of the digital dimension of these processes. In the examples introduced above, there is a consistent commitment to maintaining a playful attitude in the performances carried out, be it dispensing, practicing, or consuming evocations. ASMR creators, for example, not only focus on sound quality but often also engage in characterization, performance, and role-playing.[1] In content that is not strictly ASMR, evocations are also accompanied by gestures of “act as if.” For instance, Mintybongwater “acts as if” he is directly interacting with an imagined user in need of a hug and care.
Perhaps we could attempt to define a technology of sensoriality. With allusions to concepts like bodily practices (Muñiz, 2014), gender technologies (de Lauretis, 1989), taste technologies (Domínguez & Zirión, 2017), or the technological dimension of voice (Domínguez, 2022), a technology of sensoriality would distinguish the network of human and non-human actors involved in shaping particular perceptions, as seen in cases of ASMR and other content where the aim is not only recreation or amusement but also improvements in physical or psychological health through technological mediations like those presented here (Lohaus et al., 2023; Lewkowich, 2022; Smith & Snider, 2019).
As I noted at the beginning of this text, I am not seeking definitive conclusions. Instead, I aim to establish a precedent for a digital anthropology of the senses as a reflective exercise, as a proposal to stimulate exploration and integration of diverse theoretical and methodological frameworks. A digital anthropology of the senses has the potential to promote interdisciplinary dialogue to investigate more deeply the complexity of the senses, technological mediations of the sensory world, and the role of culture in ways of feeling.
Note
[1] It is common for ASMR creators to dress according to the scenario they aim to evoke. For instance, Gibi ASMR dresses up as an executive assistant who welcomes you with tea, fragrances, and snacks after a stressful meeting. Likewise, ASMR Zeitgeist dons the attire of a barber about to give you a haircut. One of the more intriguing cases is the video “Marilyn Monroe does YOUR makeup” where Maria Gentlewhispering impersonates the American singer and actress, wearing a pale blonde wig, red lipstick, and a beauty mark next to her mouth.
This post was curated by Contributing Editor Iván Flores.
References
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