Breach as flow in the pandemic learning room

Abstract

In the pandemic learning room, our bodies are pulled out of the chemistry that obtains in somatic presence. They are curtailed into cut-off talking heads, and the amygdala works intensively to accept the multiplied focalisation of human faces. The brain area that processes the meaning and topography of face identity – faces we know – and facial expressions, the amygdala thus becomes another perceptual mechanism breached by overload: our faces are not faces so much as interface functions in room time.