Are totems merely a thing of the distant past? Or might it be that our sleek new machines are producing totemic forces which we are only beginning to recognize? This book asks to what degree todays media technologies are haunted by a Freudian ghost, functioning as totems or taboos (or both). By isolating five case-studies (rabbits in popular culture, animated creatures that go off-program, virtual lovers, jealous animal spirit guides, and electronic paradises), Look at the Bunny highlights and explores todays techno-totemic environment. In doing so, it explores how nonhuman avatars are increasingly expected to shepherd us beyond our land-locked identities, into a risky – sometimes ecstatic – relationship with the Other.
