‘Affect’ is generally defined as ‘emotion’, and philosophically defined as ‘the ability to affect and be affected’. One has ‘affection’ for someone or something. Two of the most powerful modes of affect are love and rage, polarized, yet intertwined. One can ‘kill in a heat of passion’, a phrase that implies both love and rage as the motivator of action.

Technology is considered to be an extension of our bodies, by both philosophers of technology and neuroscientists. When we use a simple tool, our brains begin to treat it as a new part of our body. Technology can be said to be ‘prosthetic’. However, one should avoid a rationalist bias and not see technology as merely an extension of our rationality. Technology is just as much an extension of our animal passions – affect – love and rage.

Understanding the relationship between our animal selves and technology becomes more difficult when we begin to discuss more complex tools such as communication technology. Marshall McLuhan referred to such technologies as extensions of our nervous system. A global network as an extension of a collective nervous system is a complex animal indeed.

There are many examples one could choose to explore such concepts: long-distance relationships, warfare, economic transactions, etc. I have chosen American football.

A game of professional football has evolved into an incredibly complex technological situation. Communication technologies and human passions form a system in which affect is constantly being modulated, not just for the players on the field, but the fans.

When watching the New Orleans’ Saints games this season, one can observe that the team and fans seem to be coming from a place of love, forming an affective feedback loop of positive feelings. However, football requires the modulation of rage, and games are not without their outbursts in which rage can no longer be contained by the technological system. Nevertheless, the prevailing affect appears to be one of solidarity. 

Crowd noise has played a crucial role in the Saints’ wins inside of the Superdome. During the defense portions of the game, the crowd took advantage of the reflective walls of an indoor stadium by making enough noise to interfere with the visiting team’s communication technology. To no avail, Brett Favre used earplugs to improve his team’s communication technology. A technological response to a disadvantage is not uncommon, but in this particular case, noise won out. The crowd and the team form a feedback loop of larger than life communication, much like the Zerg race in Starcraft who benefit from their numbers and ability to swarm.

The philosopher Michel Serres plays off of the meanings of the French word for ‘parasite’ in his book The Parasite. The word simultaneously means parasite, host, and noise. For him, “the parasite invents cybernetics”. Noise is always a message in a communication system. Noise, like communication technologies, may play off of the rage our primitive brains, but it can also be an expression of love and solidarity.

The power of crowds was evidenced at the end of the last game, when cell phone networks were jammed by their immediate use by masses of people just after the climactic end of the game. But, that is all I can say about it for now. I think I’ve got something in my eye.