Speaker: Bruno Bonu
Monday, May 24th 17:00 pm - 18:00 pm
The representations of Sars-CoV-2 have unfortunately become familiar to us as they are present in the multiple graphic dimensions of the social world. The virus reproduces very often as a microorganism isolated from its biological environment, or on its (presumed) journey between species. It is often placed in close proximity to humans to materialize airborne transfer modalities in contamination of the non-human by the human vector to other individuals. Based on the analysis of a video with a "parodic" purpose published on YouTube, during the first pandemic in Europe (March 2020), we will analyze the constitution of a substantial modification of the substance of encounters between individuals. The infra-interactional plays a constitutive role in underpinning the co-presence of actors and exchanges between individuals. In fact, this video makes it clear that each individual (tourist, stranger, passerby, stranger or acquaintance) becomes the logistical potential of the virus's daily life (Lussaut 2020). Goffman's (1973) analyzes of individual encounters with the territorialization of space and Lynch's (1985) research on the scientific image, as well as Goodwin's (2013), can be usefully reconsidered, in the context of pandemic iconography. .
The individual potentially carrying the virus can be considered as an entity made up of two (or more) genetically distinct populations of cells. With the human body inhabited (at least potentially) by Covid, one can speak of both an organic entity and a social unit, both "chimerical". This double nature makes it possible to specify the categorical change operated on individuals in space. Their perception then encompasses this potential generalized infectious danger.
The study of the iconography of the pre-interactional infrastructure serves, in the first place, to better understand the profound adaptations that our attitudes undergo in interactions ("Kill Greetings: Primer for a Pandemic", Mc Neill 2006) both at the beginning and at its end. development. Second, the effects of the pandemic at all scales of human life, from everyday encounters to planetary mobility (Lussaut 2020), are not simply the effect of the virus for some researchers (non-living entity, for all virologists). , not autonomous). It is above all the appearance of these new “chimerical” social categories to refer to individuals that explains the “hyperescalation” of the pandemic. This is one of the recent effects in the current health crisis of interspecific mechanisms. It seems to be permanently installed in our perceptual world, so this modification deserves our analytical attention.
English 
Español