{"title":"Stonewall forever: queer monumentality in the age of augmented reality","authors":"Joe Edward Hatfield","doi":"10.1080/15295036.2023.2268698","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTIn this article, I examine Stonewall Forever, a mobile augmented reality (AR) application developed by Google and the U.S. National Parks Service, that superimposes computer-generated imagery into users’ lines of vision to shape public memories of the Stonewall National Monument. I argue the app functions rhetorically as a visual-material chronotope because it spatiotemporally reorients visions toward otherwise hidden contexts in which multiply marginalized people acted as primary agents in the events surrounding the Stonewall riots. However, even as the app renders visible the contributions of minoritized communities in a landmark moment in LGBTQ + history, it repackages the bodies of now deceased trans of color revolutionaries as icons within a homonationalist frame, obscuring the ongoing callousness of a nation-state that has yet to provide systemic protections for the very identities it memorializes. My criticism of the app focuses on how institutional powers may leverage emerging visual media to generate more inclusive historical storylines as a technique for both managing changing cultural expectations regarding representational diversity and to serve national interests, a nascent but nonetheless profound effect of the gradually coalescing domains of queer monumentality and official U.S. commemorative traditions.KEYWORDS: Digitalarchivepublic memorychronotopehomonationalism Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).","PeriodicalId":47123,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Media Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Critical Studies in Media Communication","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2023.2268698","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACTIn this article, I examine Stonewall Forever, a mobile augmented reality (AR) application developed by Google and the U.S. National Parks Service, that superimposes computer-generated imagery into users’ lines of vision to shape public memories of the Stonewall National Monument. I argue the app functions rhetorically as a visual-material chronotope because it spatiotemporally reorients visions toward otherwise hidden contexts in which multiply marginalized people acted as primary agents in the events surrounding the Stonewall riots. However, even as the app renders visible the contributions of minoritized communities in a landmark moment in LGBTQ + history, it repackages the bodies of now deceased trans of color revolutionaries as icons within a homonationalist frame, obscuring the ongoing callousness of a nation-state that has yet to provide systemic protections for the very identities it memorializes. My criticism of the app focuses on how institutional powers may leverage emerging visual media to generate more inclusive historical storylines as a technique for both managing changing cultural expectations regarding representational diversity and to serve national interests, a nascent but nonetheless profound effect of the gradually coalescing domains of queer monumentality and official U.S. commemorative traditions.KEYWORDS: Digitalarchivepublic memorychronotopehomonationalism Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
期刊介绍:
Critical Studies in Media Communication (CSMC) is a peer-reviewed publication of the National Communication Association. CSMC publishes original scholarship in mediated and mass communication from a cultural studies and/or critical perspective. It particularly welcomes submissions that enrich debates among various critical traditions, methodological and analytical approaches, and theoretical standpoints. CSMC takes an inclusive view of media and welcomes scholarship on topics such as • media audiences • representations • institutions • digital technologies • social media • gaming • professional practices and ethics • production studies • media history • political economy. CSMC publishes scholarship about media audiences, representations, institutions, technologies, and professional practices. It includes work in history, political economy, critical philosophy, race and feminist theorizing, rhetorical and media criticism, and literary theory. It takes an inclusive view of media, including newspapers, magazines and other forms of print, cable, radio, television, film, and new media technologies such as the Internet.