Everything Is A Matter Of Distance

Abstract

In physics, distance is measured as the product of speed and time; in mathematics, it is defined as the total path travelled by an object from one point to another. Both definitions share an operational clarity but capture only a single dimension of the relationship between objects. The lived reality of distance—and its counterpart, proximity—resists such simplifications. One recurring question in the contributions of this journal issue is how space itself is produced, shaped, and manipulated in contemporary techno-culture. Proximity today is engineered through techniques of approximation—statistical modes of patterning identities, collectivities, and affective bonds to corporate infrastructures. Critical vocabularies have long privileged distance—critical distance, aesthetic distance—but we are already immersed in these approximations as we are addressed, enrolled, and captured through platforms and other interfaces of affective persuasion. The challenge, then, is to ask: how might critical digital culture research manoeuvre in this terrain?