Hypertrail. Herlander Elias
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Now, the future is branded. There is no “the” future or “a” future. There are only “futures”. Each brand follows, develops, promotes and sells its own vision of the time concept of “future”. Author Kelly says that “we will be endless newbies in the future simply trying to keep up” (2016, LOC 180-5810). As a matter of fact, it may even be true. But while we try to thrive and to keep up, we are actually doing something. We are “becoming”, and becoming what? We are becoming what the brands we follow have designed for ourselves. In Bauman’s perspective “Anticipating future trends based on past events becomes more and more riskier and, oftenly mistakingly (…). Liquid life is flow of restarts" (2007, 8). Thus, this fluidity is becoming mandatory. However, we have to keep in mind that even if the past is not anymore what sells the most when compared to the future, we have to say that everything we do online, and mostly on social media, is becoming past. The past is actually useful. It is not outdated. On the contrary, the old is the new “new”. One thing is certain, to be savvy will be one of the most important attributes for near future. We need survivors for this predatory environment in which future narratives are controlled by corporate brands. We need new heroes, people with new abilities. In Pink’s regard:
“The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind—creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. These people—artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers—will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys” (2005, 1).
This means that a revolution has been triggered in view of the fact that once were attributes of media personnel, such as being empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers, now they are resources we all need. This assemble the armor we need to thrive in the new world. “We still have not left the era of the screen” (Manovich, 2001, 115), but the issue goes deeper than this. The problem is not the screen. It is the images. We should not forget that the new media image is something the user actively gets into (Idem, Ibidem, 183). Images have become addicting and engaging, and virtually they transmit dreamscapes, as well as they have become a tool for brands to connect with us. Peter Lunenfeld gives an answer to this by defending that “the computer is a dream device" (2011, xiv). It means that while everyone used the computer as a tool, it actually was an instrument, a reservoir for creatives and not just for accountants or office clerks. What gets weirder is that we are role-playing with all things computerized. “Over time, such performances of identity may feel like identity itself” (Turkle, 2011, 12) hence, the computer or any gadget like a smartphone is an evocative object of psychology. Moreover, the computers connected to network, social media and cloud “What was hidden in an individual’s mind became shared” (Manovich, 2001, 61). It is interesting to point out that the save icon has gradually being replaced by the share icon in most software and apps. In the book
La Bombe Informatique,
Paul Virilio (1999, 24) claims that there is the invention of a great optic of replacement or a work of art of a horizon of substitution. So, it is important to highlight this moment when we speak of the forgotten concept of the 90s : « hyper-reality » (Baudrillard, 1996, 64), though it stands attached to some degree to vertigo hyper-reality means that images have been leveled up to a new degree. We can understand it better if we look at what Bruce Sterling said on an interview (Bosch, 2012); he described design fiction as “not a kind of fiction [but] a kind of design. It tells worlds rather than stories”. Hyper-reality is this new regime of imagery that is part how the new world is built. It is not just fiction; it is world-design, too.
2.Vision, Self And The Cyber-System
Paul Virilio is famous for speaking about “Vision Machines” (1994). In consonance with his point of view, we stand prisoners of machinery designed to redirect our vision. From painting to photography and to film, not to mention new digital platforms, we are bound to look at images and screens. However, at the same time, these vision machines were gathering us around them, so did evolve the war machine with drones, surveillance, CCTV cameras and so on. Ultimately, we could say that vision machines are based on warfare strategies and tools alike. The system we deal with today seems to be ludic. Some speak of the “the playing self” (Kenneth J. Gergen in Frissen et al, 2015, 61), and indeed, games as a culture is thriving but most games seem war simulations. Behind the scheme, the grand scheme there is something “dialogic (…)” (Hartley, 2012, 8). Once, we were all mass society and mass media children and now we are digital audiences, and we are engaging in an aggressive manner with hyper-real images. The new dialogue means that we are under control. Whenever we go online, we remain under control of the once so-called “cyberspace”. We are leaving behind us a hypertrail thanks to the way computers and digital devices, generally speaking, perform around our data. Data is the new oil. Still, “the computer helps people to create experiences and offers them spaces” (Lunenfeld, 2011, xiii). The word computer will soon be outdated, as it does not describe anymore what stands around us. We seek the new arenas, the new games, the new spaces of consumerism. Brands are in charge now. In the meantime, it is true that “We live in a golden age of new mediums” (Kelly, 2016, LOC 2823-5810). Technology, economy, politics, aesthetics and culture in general