Apparatgeist

Apparatgeist was a neologism invented in 2002 by James E Katz and Mark Aakhus as a term to define a sociologic basis of mobile communication theory, specifically within the context of its relationship to technology and society.

It is a term that is used to suggest the spirit of the machine that influences both the design of the technology as well as the initial and subsequent significance accorded them by users, non-users and anti-users.

The word has its origins in the Germanic and Slavic word apparat, and the Germanic word geist; the former meaning the technological and sociological aspects of the machine, more commonly associated with the word apparatus, and the latter meaning spirit, in the Hegelian (Hegel, 1997) sense of spirit or mind which is defined as the essence which animates the lives of all human cultures in diverse ways.

It draws attention to issues which include the way that people use mobile technologies as tools in their daily life in terms of tool-using behavior and the relationship among technology, body and social role....the rhetoric and meaning-making that occur via social interaction among users (and non-users).

References

Maddock,R. [n.d.] The Mobile Phone as the New ‘Mixed-Reality’ Interface for Digital Art – a New Form of Apparatgeist?. Available at http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~rmaddock/reflection/projassesDec/PGPD.pdf. Accessed 7 September 2008