I’m fascinated and somewhat infuriated by this article in the Guardian. An author who calls himself an ‘academic’ writing under a pseudonym (irritating in itself) has railed against internet dating, arguing that it is turning falling in love into a process of calculation.
The implication seems to be that technology instrumentalises the process of falling in love. I’ve actually posted a comment which counters this by suggesting that love and sexuality were instrumentalised by the media well before the invention of the internet. I’m imagining that I will be drowned out by the male academic infighting that seems to be the order of the day. None the less here is what I wrote:
This article is not about internet dating, its about how the media impacts on society and the choices that people make. Global capitalism and the language of advertising do encourage homogenisation and create rigid stereotypes about what individuals should expect to find attractive. But love became a sale-able commodity way before the internet was invented: on TV, in the press and in bars where people go to pick up easy sex. The net is just another tool for making money out of the human desire to be loved.
While McLuhan may have been been on to something when he said that ‘the medium is the message,’ I don’t think he was asking us to consider each medium individually, but to think more holistically about the entire spectrum of communication. To blame the commodification of love on the internet suggests ignorance of the wider society we live in.
Apparently Google is now ‘a replacement for the ancient human faculty of memory,’ according to an article I have just spied in the Guardian. I love this kind of speculation that technology changes the shape and connections in the human brain. Although I am not totally sure that I can believe the articles thesis that Google is teaching us to remember information in new ways.
For example; I have kept a huge filing cabinet of info on interesting exhibitions and articles that I have enjoyed for the past five years or so. I take great pleasure in the alphabetical filing system I have created for cataloguing the info, it allows me to indulge my inner secretary! I am not sure why this process is any different to something like online bookmarking or search engines, both things seem like similar approaches to information retrieval. One is an old system and one is new and dependent on a technological engine.
Principal researcher Betsey Sparrow (beautiful name) says that internet has become “an external memory source that we can access at any time.” The article says that this makes the internet an “arena where information is stored collectively outside ourselves.” It does then move on to say that this is very similar to the “collective memory” that we rely upon among our family, colleagues and friends. So in essence if we are already primed to remember information that is outside of ourselves, why does the technological or mediated extension of this process amount to – so the article seems to suggest- a fundamental change in how our brain works?
Yesterday I struggled to get any work done as I tuned in to a live stream project called Purge by performance artist Brian Lobel
I’ve always found artists live stream projects to be particularly compelling, there is something about seeing a real time relay that I find fascinating. Historically I’ve loved Coco Fusco’s early live stream work because rather than just being a live broadcast of a piece of performance art, its also a work about the nature of surveillance, so the form suits the content.
And its the same with Purge, which is a live broadcast of Brian going through all of his 1000+ facebook friends and then asking a panel of judges if he should keep them or delete them. Admittedly quite a banal idea, the process actually becomes totally compelling when you hear the artist tell indiscreet little stories about people from his past, or give his honest, vaguely formed opinions of people that he admittedly doesn’t even know so well. Naturally as a viewer and facebook friend of Brian I feel compelled to keep observing and know if the judges will think me worthy enough for Brian to retain my friendship.
And its this narcissism of watching that is the most intelligent aspect of the project. Social networks such as facebook thrive on the users wish to to create a particular public persona or to somehow perform the self.
The project is also a really compelling reply to some of the writing I’ve done on here about the notion of intimacy in online relationships. Its clear from Brain’s process that some of his facebook ‘friends’ represent deep and intimate connections of which social networks are a valued part. Other so called facebook ‘friends’ amount to only a vague acquaintance of people to whom he is totally indifferent.
I’ve met Brian once and added him perhaps out of ‘professional curiosity’ after he applied to participate in performance platform I was helping to curate with a proposal that would have seen him pretending to masturbate in the gents toilets of the arts venue. We turned the piece down… I wonder if he remembers and will see this as a necessary justification for deletion!
Its online during the day until Sunday 10th July and you can watch the live stream here
I’m not sure if its totally reader friendly to be blogging so frequently about suicide. Again I would justify it by saying that these bright and sunny summer months are almost peak suicide season, so the Wikipedia statistics tell me. Before you start wondering don’t worry… its not something that I am considering at present!
To stay on topic I watched The Bridge by Eric Steel last night. Its a documentary shot on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The camera crew captured 23 of the 24 people who jumped from the bridge in that year. Its is the most popular suicide destination in the world.
Although its an outsider documenting the suicide jump and isn’t shot as a ‘point of view’ as some self documented suicides might be, it definitely relates somehow to themes of grandiosity or what is referred to in the marketing copy for the film as ‘The Fatal Grandeur of the Golden Gate Bridge.’ A life spent in torment can perhaps be redeemed by inventing a sensational or glamorous death? If you don’t want to document your own suicide then why not jump at the most notorious suicide location in the world?
Not only did the directors document all of the jumps, but they managed to catch up with eyewitnesses and the friends and families of their suicidal subjects. The perspective that this gives the viewer is harrowing.
So much of the footage is utterly sublime, but there is one particular protagonist who stands out. He is called Gene Sprague and his long hair silhouetted against in the sun almost turns him into a living ghost, even before he jumps. His story runs throughout the film and reaches a crescendo with his jump, which is also spellbinding. Watch it:
The Bridge – clip
Last night I woke up in a sweat at some ridiculous hour, after having a nightmare about being trapped in the department store TJ Hughes. Of course I went straight to twitter to fill the void of fragile, sleepless loneliness and came across this image. Its stolen from a tweet by James (shhh don’t tell him). Its taken out of the same window where we shot the first suicide video…. and I liked seeing it at a delicate hour of the morning, rather than under the fierce sun that was shinning during the weekend when I was there.
I’m told that more people take their own lives in the middle of the day and during the summer than they do at night and in the winter…. seems like the wrong way around, doesn’t it?
