ABSTRACT
Both in popular and academic discourse human belonging has been conceptualised as under threat in imagined futures that are increasingly mediated by technologies. These objects are positioned as obstacles to, or corruptors of, human intimacy. Examining intersections of popular culture and lived experience, we draw from qualitative interviews with smartphone users and episodes of the series Black Mirror to discuss dominant narratives of device culture producing a problematic intimacy that revokes our belonging to future human communities. Finally, we propose a rethinking of intimacy, via philosopher Gilbert Simondon, which allows us to imagine how non-human belonging might refigure technological futures.
