feedback loop

The magazine Adbusters is fun to flip through from time to time, like a glossy zine or student art project... but the 2006 Big Ideas back issue, having lots of notable names commenting on current imbalances, is well worth checking out, even if the taste is a little medicinal. I thought this bit relevant to our little world here:

In his book Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It, Thomas de Zengotita argues that because of mediation “reality is becoming indistinguishable from representation in a qualitatively new way.” ...When we go on vacation, experiencing isn’t enough: we photograph, videotape, blog, post to Flickr. But why? Isn’t direct experience enough? Or do we need technology to validate our experiences?
Exactly, says Zengotita: mediation flatters us. We’re the one pushing the buttons, whose life is so important it must be chronicled, transmitted, and repurposed. (I blog therefore I am.) “The flattered self is a mediated self,” Zengotita writes, “and the alchemy of mediation, the osmotic process through which reality and representation fuse, gets carried into our psyches by the irresistible flattery that goes with being incessantly addressed.”

Thanks Adbusters, but I am going to keep thinking of all this as a an electronic family photo album, dammit!

Post Maine posts coming soon... e