On Modes of (Over)Stimulation

This essay provides an introductory account of concerns over media stimulation through a series of critical lenses. Building on theoretical debates concerning the struggle for control of perception and the potential to rewire the human perceptual apparatus, we examine issues such as distraction, shock, and desensitization, and consider their significance in the contemporary mediascape. First, we map historical precedents theorizing the modern sensorium, including Georg Simmel’s account of the metropolis, Walter Benjamin’s concept of shock, and Marshall McLuhan’s notion of numbness. Second, we consider stimulation and overstimulation from a media-ecological perspective, which emphasizes entanglement between human subjects and computational technologies. We then reconsider pessimistic diagnoses of media (over)stimulation, seeking to nuance these accounts, and turn to emerging interfaces, such as neural media, to explore new frontiers of stimulation. Before introducing the inspired contributions to this special issue, we establish some guiding principles for a new media theory of (over)stimulation.