Reviving Topological Thinking in the Post-Media Condition

Discourses about the post-media condition, typically informed by the Guattarian postulation of a subject gaining autonomy through enunciative assemblages, comprised of tools made possible by infotech activity, are latently imbued with optimism. This chapter argues that the realization promised by a post-media condition must account for the notion that the internet, and social media specifically, paradigmatically perpetuates the collapse of meaningful distinctions. All information is flexible and all media objects are interchangeable. Yet, while the promise of a post-media condition is not without hurdles, it remains pursuable through topological thinking, made possible by the articulation of place and place-making practices and a reinvigoration of a care-oriented perspective that centers the disclosive character of human being. The first section of this chapter articulates the challenges facing the post-media condition through a Dreyfus-inspired reading of Heidegger and Kierkegaard, with the second devoted to addressing how topological thinking, as understood by Malpas and its association with unveiling one’s potentiality for being, invites the possibility to reinvigorate a human being’s disclosive agency and, subsequently, trust and confidence in the possibilities afforded by the post-media condition.