Elena Esposito (Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia)
Virtual Contingency in the Web Communication

The need for an expanded concept of ecology is shown more and more clearly by recent developments in communication technologies: trends as Internet of things, ambient intelligence or cloud computing require a different way to see the relationship between subjects and objects, and presumably a revision of the concept of communication. Who and how operates as communication partner cannot be determined a priori by abstract criteria, but must be decided from time to time on the basis of ongoing operations (Simondon) – or on the basis of communicative structures (Luhmann).
The new forms of web communication, which involve increasingly automata and realize forms of information processing that cannot be attributed to a specific consciousness, invite to shift the perspective and to start directly from communication and its forms of production of meaning. It is actually a radicalization of the original approach of Cybernetics (Wiener), that didn’t start from the distinction between men and machines but from the forms of circular control that emerge in information processing.
Systems theory uses a concept of communication based on double contingency, i.e. a circular relationship of uncertainty production, structured and managed by the progress of communication. Double contingency presupposes the participation of two consciousnesses, both unpredictable and self-determined. Can we think of a derived form of contingency emerging in the communication between consciousnesses and machines that seem to be capable of producing surprising information (Günther)? The concept of »virtual contingency« is proposed in order to describe a new form of relationship between subjects and the objects of communication, which leads to reconsider the meaning and the forms of our technological relationship with the world.

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