Thursday 8 March 2007

Deviant Art

Another example of digital art (see previous post on postsecret) that is shaping the boundaries of a new self is found at the 'largest art community in the world' in www.deviantart.com. The purpose is that users within the 'deviant' community post their works, mostly photography or digital manipulation to a community of fellow 'artists'. What I can most strikingly see as different in this type of artistic expression, is how it is made for and by the community. For the community since the works are mostly posted in view of obtaining comments and recognition from others. By the community, since the most viewed works are displayed first, easier to find, and thus subject to the community's approval.

At the same time, within this community, one can organize and keep a list of favourite artists and works, thus defining one's place in the web of 'digital online artists'.

Tuesday 6 March 2007

Blog - Acknowledging the medium, but also its web of relations

I've talked about how hypermediacy confronts us with the medium, by acknowledging and addressing it. This was a trend that surfaced more clearly in modern art, in paintings as discussed in my previous post, but also in other forms of expression, such as in Dziga Vertov's movie 'Man with a movie camera'.

In the new digital media, it is not only the medium that surfaces and is brought to light, but the whole web of relations that makes the medium and the content possible. The piece of art within digital media is not an isolated piece that can be exhibited in a fictional museum of 'digital art', but is formed by the pre-existing content in an explicit way.

This could be compared to 'filmic quotes', where movies make allusions to older ones, such as when the film 'Metropolis' from 1927 quotes parts of the movie 'Cabiria' from 1914, making an analogy between the industrial mega-machine with the 'temple of Moloch'. However, the movie is still a 'stand-alone' piece, while digital art, specifically within the context of digital communication networks, only exists within the network. That is, if we forget that the movie also depends on a network to exist. The film only exists with projectors and spaces designed for its projection, which a Latourian conceptualization of actor-networks helps to illuminate.

I maintain, despite this, that hypermediacy goes one step further in digital expression media such as blogs. That is, because the external influences and references are explictly part of the content of a blog, not only implicitly as in the case of movies. The content is in part formed by windows to spatially and temporally distinct elements.

The blog as digital collage

Digital media, or hypermedia, confronts us with the possibility to create a montage of different media elements together, such as text, graphics, animations, sounds, or videos. The process of collage is taken one step further, where the elements put together have different natures. The digital environment is hypermediated in the sense that it multiplies and re-arranges media forms.

Furthermore, in blogs, the elements that are put together are many times shared by other internet users. A picture appearing in this blog may be taken from another blog, or website, and particular pieces of text may provide 'windows' to jump to other spaces within the Network. This process of 'collage' combines both 'thick' self-created digital content with 'thin' direct references to pre-existing content. The result of expressing oneself in this medium is that the expression is constituted by links to other people's expressions.

In this blog, I use the software for generating blogs from blogger.com, and the images used are taken from other sources in the Net. At the same time, as part of my discourse, I provide links to other places around the network. The blog fully acknowledges not only the medium, but the relationships implicated by the medium. The blog does not exist alone, but only with respect to the wider Web. When I express myself in this medium, I gather different sources that constitute and make the finalized piece possible. The collage uses different types of media from different sources, or locations.

Monday 5 March 2007

Remediating the self

Blogging also serves as a way for self-expression. In different types of media, the expression of the self is achieved in different ways, which means that the media itself contributes to how the self is constituted within it. Through media, we are able to define our personal and cultural identity, which serves as our 'anchor' to a given period of history. The fact that our identity is transported through different types of media, means it is subject to a process of 'remediation', where references to older types of media and new possibilities offered by new media converge in the fabrication of the expression of a contemporary self.

In one sense, personal blogs are 'remediations' of the old personal journals, put into the context of digital media. At the same time, the new digital media and communication technologies open up new possibilities for expressing the 'self', which were previously inexistent - this is best captured through the notion of a 'networked self'. In the digital media, which the blogs are part of, the self is constituted by the hypercontextualization within a widespread practice of information exchange. The self in the digital era needs to be defined in relation to the web-like structure of our current lives, where every action and piece of information at a 'node' is connected and defined by the links to it.

When writing a journal, the constructed self is one living a secret and rich life, where the most intimate thoughts are expressed only to oneself. In digital media, the constructed self is a networked self, which is constantly linked and engaged with other selves. We cannot afford individuality in the new 'digital media' and the constructions of selves reflect the highly web-like structure of our lives. At the same time, the blog recenters the subject, since it defines its place in a web of relations. Thoughts are expressed in the blog within this context, and not to a single personal addressee. I will develop this in further posts!