Techno-aesthetics of the videogame: Pokémon Go or a trip in an enclosure circle

Abstract

In the following article we will analyze a new technological fetish: the videogame for smartphone known as Pokemon go. The thesis proposed by Guy Debord in The society of the spectacle in order to understand the development of technologies –the most important commodity of our time– and the proto-history of the present anticipated by Walter Benjamin are the keys we selected to reflect on the techno-aesthetic dimension of our society and its influence in the social sensitivity. The reflections we present here are organized as follows: in the first place we study the link between "techno-aesthetics" and "spectacle". Secondly, we focus on the object of analysis from a two-dimensional perspective: a discontinuous genealogy exposed in certain moments of emergency of the monstrosity in the imaginary –and the social experience– and the gameplay modalities that precede and converge in the Pokémon Go (PG) form, as a social game which requires a participation via cell phone. Finally, in the context of tendencies that mediate and commodify life in an increasing way, dividing and segregating social classes, we question the promise of travel and play associated with PG, producing other forms of ideologically constructed monstrosity that do not fit in our hands.