Episode 5: Jason Farman – Embodied Space, Delay, and Mobile Storytelling

In Episode 5 of the Oral Histories of Mobile Communication, we hear from Jason Farman, Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, whose work has been foundational to the study of embodiment, space, and mobile media.

Jason reflects on his early academic training in performance art and digital media, tracing how his interest in the relationship between bodies and space led him to mobile communication as an object of study. He discusses his major scholarly contributions, including Mobile Interface Theory and Delayed Response: The Art of Waiting from the Ancient to the Instant World, where he reframes delay and latency as meaningful components of communication rather than technological shortcomings.

The conversation also explores mobile storytelling and its promise to create polyvocal, location-based narratives that challenge dominant histories of place. Jason concludes by reflecting on infrastructural literacy, inequality, and the growing influence of the attention economy, offering a critical perspective on how mobile technologies shape everyday life, culture, and power.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction and academic background
01:10 From performance art to mobile media
02:10 Embodied space and early mobile scholarship
03:00 Mobile Interface Theory and social proprioception
05:20 Defining the field of mobile communication
07:00 Embodiment, phenomenology, and materiality
09:30 Delayed Response and the meaning of waiting
11:00 Mobile storytelling and polyvocal narratives of place
13:00 Geolocation, social media, and spatial memory
14:00 Infrastructural literacy and visibility through breakdown
17:30 Infrastructure, power, and inequality
19:30 The digital divide and structural inequities
22:00 Attention economy and behavioral design
25:00 Reflections on the future of mobile communication research