Core Response #2 (Kallan)

Morse’s piece gives shape to a formless boredom or listlessness that pervades contemporary American life, and it’s hard not to think about the rise of portable internet devices (since 1990) in relation to these moods and in considering “mobile privatization.” Morse writes, “The first distinguishing feature of nonspace is its dreamlike displacement or separation from its surroundings” (197). She references the “zombie effect” of malls and the “detached involvement” of driving (203), which recall the smartphone-zombies navigating pedestrian streets or subway routes while glued to their phones. The “nexus” of television, freeways, and malls, which “are systems constructed to interact in mutually reinforcing ways” (210) are now supplemented by actual networks shared across screens that embed “nonspace" into any given physical space, and which keep people in a state of “dreamlike displacement” (197) for hours at a time. The televisual “multiple worlds” that are “condensed into one visual field” have been condensed into even smaller (and arguably more involving) visual fields, furthering a process of “miniaturization” (211). While we see our reflections in the car windshield, our phones show us our photographic selves along with endless other “worlds,” displacing us from our visual field in a physical space that we may be only peripherally aware of. 

Morse’s piece also made me think about how these three institutions can invoke (or be invoked to produce) Americana nostalgia for a time when the freeways weren’t so clogged, Amazon hadn’t driven malls out of business, and TV was physically located. (In addition to my own nostalgia, I think about the many American movies about "hitting the open road,” TV shows about earlier television, like WandaVision, and recent interest in 90s mall culture, like the return of dELiA*s or the multiple references to the mall in Taylor Swift’s new albums). Although Morse persuasively points to the problematic ways in which these systems prevent resistance and lock out alternative ideas, perhaps some of this nostalgia stems from the relative perceived intensity, whether accurately felt or not, of our present echo chambers’ dangers. I used to firmly believe in the possibility that Morse points to at the close of her article, i.e., the power of long-term effort to shift belief, including through television, but now I am not sure how relevant television will be in shaping our fractured present and uncertain future.

https://www.dollskill.com/delias-retro-tv-blinking-eye-crossbody-bag-orange.html