Going Viral: The Media Anthropology of the “Quarantine Subject” in the Context of Biopolitics and Psychopolitics

Abstract

Abstract This essay explores the outlines of the “quarantine subject,” a construct that has formed along the borderlines of viral, immunological, psychopolitical, and biopolitical metaphors. The focus is grounded in media archeology and media anthropology. Under media anthropology lies a basically German philosophical anthropological tradition that explores the convergence of biological and cultural dimensions. Helmuth Plessner and Arnold Gehlen have only recently been rediscovered in the English-speaking world.1 Hans Belting, for one, has elaborated a triple image anthropology that uses the triad of picture–medium–body in the interpretation of various aesthetic paradigms. This essay maps the convergence between the three dimensions emphasized by Belting and the digital-virtual turn driven by, among other factors, the COVID–19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns. The goal is the elaboration of a speculative “quarantine subjectivity model,” one that is determined by geographical and social factors, such as Internet access and technological integration, as well as a relatively “moderate” degree of quarantine measures. (MZN)