The Symposium day was divided into three blocks, each consisting of a pairing of a keynote lecture and an artist presentation, which kept the flow diverse and animated.

Poetic performance by Erica Scourti started the afternoon part. The artist uses applications, designed to improve performance, for her own artistic practice. Using a speed reading app, she let the increasing amount of words per minute navigate her through the text, creating an immersive experience.

Following lecture by Nishant Shah (co-founder of the Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore and a Professor of Culture & Aesthetics of Digital Media, at Leuphana University, Lueneburg) on the topic “The Object of our Affection: Pornography, Perversion, and Pleasure in the Digital” was very dense, yet amusing exploration of the paradoxes of affection and affect in digital platforms.

“The trouble with love is, that it is very much like porn. We can’t see it, we can’t describe it, we can’t explain it, but when we feel it (or see it), we know it. ” He started by dividing the subject into three main categories: affect as the thing in itself; affect as an object; affect as seen through different lens. Then Nishant portrayed these different approaches, by making references, ranging from classics such as Shakespeare’s King Lear, to the very contemporary social media scene, such as Facebook and Twitter. In either ways, the quantification of love happens and is presented as an almost intrinsic human need.

Followed by a closer insight towards digital interfaces and the new forms and protocols that rise from our user experiences, it is interesting to understand how virtual environments often trigger more intimate and affective responses. In this way, digital objects often become objects of affection; and the relationship between technology and its users has been evolving, or shall we say, updating to the current circumstances.

One example, illustrating this idea, was the american phenomena: Invisible Boyfriend (https://invisibleboyfriend.com) – an online service where people can easily arrange a partner to perform in social media and to within other digital features, at an affordable price.

“Temporarily yours” – The ephemerality of  affect, and a sense of lightness towards such complex concepts, such as love, has captured an enormous community of people searching and acquiring such online services. Only one click away, an almost instantaneous act of acquiring love. Smooth, an almost automatic process, if it wasn’t for the less invisible people behind the interface that actually operate as boyfriend/girlfriend respectively.

“A digital object exists as long as there is data transmitted between two nodes.”  As long as the affect persists, circulation of computational data and its love affairs will remain.