This presentation is based on the first chapter of my PhD, and that project is a critical phenomenology of the practice of digital scrolling. In this presentation, I explore how the practice of digital scrolling situates the subject in relation to the material world around them. I ask, in essence, what kind of world is given to us by scrolling. I begin with a phenomenological description of screens, which is combined with analysis drawn from Maurice Merleau-Ponty to argue that a primary effect of scrolling is that the material world which the subject inhabits recedes into the absolute periphery and that, while scrolling, the world for the subject essentially becomes that which is displayed upon the screen. I then draw from Gunther Anders’ The World as Phantom and Matrix to explore the nature of this pseudo-world of scrolling and its 'phantomic' qualities. I conclude with analysis inspired by Fredric Jameson to explore relevant ideological implications and argue that the phantom world of scrolling is one in which the horizons of possibility are limited to the act of consumption.
