What becomes clear right away in Mark Andrejevic's iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era is the ridiculous pittance we will accept for sacrificing our stakes in privacy, creativity, and the right/ability to make choices. Now, I was already feeling this way after last week and might be reading too far in one direction, but I think iSpy also hits on the desperate need we have to feel connected to something. I wrote about this last week in terms of affect as the corporeal, emotional ties we experience as bodies; this base connection underlies the divisions of intersectionality and between varying standpoints, possibly uniting us as sentient beings. So what stands out to me (especially in "Three Dimensions of iCulture") is the push to plug into relationships. This push is as much self-motivated as it is corporate. The networking and cybernetic booms are in response to user participation. In other words, the resonating surge in interactive campaigns would not have occurred without an expressed interest in the buying public. Granted, the paths between individuals and technology will always be cyclical, but it really feels like without our active submission to these services and products that we would not be as bound by the technology.
It seems that in the atomization of American society we are craving bonds that let us feel like part of something. Usually when I think about this, I envision the satisfaction of connecting with someone on an individual level or the security you feel when you are with a close group of family or friends; there is a human component that is very direct. Based on Andrejevic's examples, it seems that we are willing to accept a range of conduits to have this feeling, even if the humans on the receiving end are just implied. Facebook provides one of the more direct connections with individuals you have either met or are connected to through other friends. On the other hand, Nike's interactive shoe designing campaign and PostSecret highlight the willingness to bond with a faceless entity that loosely represents a collection of individuals. Direct connection isn't made, but the semblance is enough to fulfill something on some level. In this way, capitalism can creep even further into our everyday lives.
As some of you know, I am fascinated with the power of nostalgia. Tapping into people's emotional memories of the past, even pasts they have never experienced personally but are familiar through popular culture, can be an extremely powerful motivator. We see it with political and advertising campaigns, as well as with tourism, in film, etc. It's all over the place and it is essential for the interactive pull to hit at our motivators and heart strings. Andrejevic asserts that the nostalgia for interactive culture pulls at our understanding of a pre-industrial past. We long to be more than consumers (M.A. uses the term "prosumers") and the act of helping to create, even when creation is simply choosing from pre-selected options (like the Qdoba menu or Nike's iD shoe customizer). In this way, we are allowed to be producers without doing much of the real production. We can sample a few options, point or click at what we want, and then someone else (or a program) will do the physical work. Although we are doing a kind of work, the work is merely for the corporations involved (ie. David Bowie + Audi mash up project) Like the relationships, it doesn't have to be real as long as it gives of the feeling of realness.
Another element of iCulture is an increase in peer-to-peer surveillance and the surge of biometric technologies to help with this. We are "looking for physical evidence that can't be staged" (38). Again, I think on some level we must be aware that by plugging in and signing on we agree to the farce of connection, but we are still starving for proof of anything. Biometrics speak directly to the physical evidence we are craving, whether it's a lie-detector in a Judge Judy courtroom or monitoring somebody's heart when they're on a reality show date, we want to know the "truth" - it is written in your guts and in your circulatory system. In general, this also points to the suspicions we have about everyone even when we're striving to make these connections. Background check websites, credit check, bad date check - all of this can be done before you even meet someone face-to-face. Combining these two anxieties are the Forget-Me-Not Panties Andrejevic mentions that were meant as social commentary, but mistakenly were take serious by some less ironic parties who were actually interested in investing. But unlike the panties, this Dramatel commercial is a legitimate service. I'll save the discussions of race and gender for another time, but the push for surveillance of a mate is intense.
It seems that in the atomization of American society we are craving bonds that let us feel like part of something. Usually when I think about this, I envision the satisfaction of connecting with someone on an individual level or the security you feel when you are with a close group of family or friends; there is a human component that is very direct. Based on Andrejevic's examples, it seems that we are willing to accept a range of conduits to have this feeling, even if the humans on the receiving end are just implied. Facebook provides one of the more direct connections with individuals you have either met or are connected to through other friends. On the other hand, Nike's interactive shoe designing campaign and PostSecret highlight the willingness to bond with a faceless entity that loosely represents a collection of individuals. Direct connection isn't made, but the semblance is enough to fulfill something on some level. In this way, capitalism can creep even further into our everyday lives.
As some of you know, I am fascinated with the power of nostalgia. Tapping into people's emotional memories of the past, even pasts they have never experienced personally but are familiar through popular culture, can be an extremely powerful motivator. We see it with political and advertising campaigns, as well as with tourism, in film, etc. It's all over the place and it is essential for the interactive pull to hit at our motivators and heart strings. Andrejevic asserts that the nostalgia for interactive culture pulls at our understanding of a pre-industrial past. We long to be more than consumers (M.A. uses the term "prosumers") and the act of helping to create, even when creation is simply choosing from pre-selected options (like the Qdoba menu or Nike's iD shoe customizer). In this way, we are allowed to be producers without doing much of the real production. We can sample a few options, point or click at what we want, and then someone else (or a program) will do the physical work. Although we are doing a kind of work, the work is merely for the corporations involved (ie. David Bowie + Audi mash up project) Like the relationships, it doesn't have to be real as long as it gives of the feeling of realness.
Another element of iCulture is an increase in peer-to-peer surveillance and the surge of biometric technologies to help with this. We are "looking for physical evidence that can't be staged" (38). Again, I think on some level we must be aware that by plugging in and signing on we agree to the farce of connection, but we are still starving for proof of anything. Biometrics speak directly to the physical evidence we are craving, whether it's a lie-detector in a Judge Judy courtroom or monitoring somebody's heart when they're on a reality show date, we want to know the "truth" - it is written in your guts and in your circulatory system. In general, this also points to the suspicions we have about everyone even when we're striving to make these connections. Background check websites, credit check, bad date check - all of this can be done before you even meet someone face-to-face. Combining these two anxieties are the Forget-Me-Not Panties Andrejevic mentions that were meant as social commentary, but mistakenly were take serious by some less ironic parties who were actually interested in investing. But unlike the panties, this Dramatel commercial is a legitimate service. I'll save the discussions of race and gender for another time, but the push for surveillance of a mate is intense.
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