Solitude and Presence: Photo Reflections on Natural and Digital Ecologies

For over a year I, along with my wife and six-year-old daughter, have rented a small, mailbox-shaped house nestled among fifteen acres of private land in Durham, New Hampshire. During our time here the forest never lost its draw, and in fact has become an unexpected source of insight for my teaching and research. My academic work, which touches on media, religion, and digital culture, is all the richer for having spent countless hours walking, sitting, and reflecting in the small oasis that we’ve come to call home. While I generally prefer to leave my phone behind, I occasionally bring it with me to capture images and videos of this lightly-traveled piece of land. However metaphorically, many of these images capture key concepts behind my own evolving critique of digital culture: silence and solitude, presence and place, among others. The essays in this short work represent an early foray into an approach that I call contemplative media studies: the application of contemplative principles and practices to the critical analysis of media technologies, content, and institutions.