IRC-Galleria

“After Nietzsche famously announced “God is dead”, he continued, “We have lost the spectator.” The emergence of internet means the return of the universal spectator. So it seems that we are back in paradise and, like saints do the immaterial work of pure existence under the divine gaze. In fact, the life of a saint can be described as a blog that is read by God and remains uninterrupted even upon the saint’s death. So why do we need secrets anymore” (Cornell & Hartel, 361)

An individual cannot control the continuum regarding the melding of the physical and the virtual, but is likely to be forced to follow, because the society itself seeks to develop in this matter. Various postmodernist writers perplexed by the concept of representation would today have various things to say about technological and societal development; indeed, the end of postmodern condition happened only in theory, allowing thinkers to discuss the topic from a certain distance. (Lee, 73) The schizophrenia, as it was called decades ago, has remained, but is becoming more severe and schizophrenic in itself due to the ever-increasing speed of technological development. Whereas we say that the digital has become as real as the analog, it is engrossing to examine an individual's relation to the surrounding, digitalized society. Boris Groys notes: “If the Internet is participatory, it is so in the same sense that literary space is. Here and there, anything that enters these spaces is noticed by other participants, provoking reactions from them, which in turn provoke further reactions, and so forth. However, this active participation takes place solely within the user’s imagination, leaving his or her body unmoved.” (Groys, 2009; pg. 27)
Ian Buchanan points out that the internet has absorbed all the before existing medias into itself: “Internet has simplified what media means and in the process set off a massive expansion of media operations into virtually every corner of existence. It is having the same effect on retail” (Buchanan, 12) Whereas photography is usually referred to as a time-based medium, or metaphorically as a “footprint or a deathmask” (Sontag, 120), or simply as a ‘memory’, today’s virtually shared photographs have become even more permanent and immortal due to the interactive qualities of the internet. (Jurgenson, 45) However, on the other hand the immateriality of today’s social photography “offers an alternative to recording and collecting life into database museums, encouraging appreciation for the experience of the present for its own sake.” (ibid, 49)
According to Boris Groys, the ideology of modernity in all of its aspects “was directed against contemplation, against spectatorship, against the passivity of the masses paralyzed by the spectacle of modern life.” (Groys, 2009; pg. 21), which ultimately celebrated vita activa over vita contemplativa. (ibid, pg. 19) “But already by the end of the nineteenth century, the vita contemplativa was thoroughly discredited and the vita activa was elevated to the true task of humankind. At least since Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, design has been accused of seducing people into weakening their activity, vitality, and energy—of making them passive consumers who lack will, who are manipulated by omnipresent advertising to become victims of capital.” (Axel, et al., 15) “The apparent cure for this trance was a shock-like encounter with the “real” capable of rescuing people from their contemplative passivity and moving them to action, to the only thing that promises an experience of truth as living intensity. The only debate that remained was over the question of whether such an encounter with the real was still possible, or whether the real has definitively disappeared behind its designed surface.” (ibid) Similarly to Jurgenson, he responds to this statement by adding that the increasingly easy access to digital medias combined with the internet as a platform, has as well transformed our relationship concerning images; we are increasingly interested in image production, rather than image contemplation. (Groys, 2010; 14-15) He discusses the interconnectivity of the internet in relation to human sociality, using the above-mentioned concept ‘gaze of others’ in its Sartrean sense, to illustrate his point: “The virtual space of the internet is primarily an arena in which my website on Facebook is permanently designed and redesigned to be presented to YouTube— and vice versa. But likewise in the real or, let’s say, analog world, one is expected to be responsible for the image that he or she presents to the gaze of others. It could even be said that self-design is a practice that unites artist and audience alike in the most radical way: though not everyone produces artworks, everyone is an artwork. At the same time, everyone is expected to be his or her own author.” (ibid, 41) In other words, social media platforms are directly connected to the notion of self-design and that is what makes them popular: individuals are able to present a certain kind of picture of themselves virtually, as a desired image-repertoire of self, in a non-physical and non-linear discourse with others. Very similarly to the Sartrean gaze discussed by Groys, also Jurgenson points out that “there is no “self” without other people—no intrinsic, essential, or natural authenticity to our own identity without a mirror or camera to reflect it.” (Jurgenson, 55)
Although the virtual versions of individuals operate on the basis of representation and often through the so-called perfect draughtsmanship of photography or other medium (which connect the physical qualities of the original subject to the digital representation), the virtual copy is allowed to be imperfect and unfaithful in contrast to its material, offline original. As the virtual representation is identified by others, it then as well gains an ability to strongly alter the original in the gaze of others, outside the virtual realm. Perhaps the most evident example of such social media platform is Facebook, where most the users are using their real names, accompanied with pictures of themselves, and therefore tend to share information, which they view as socially preferred (Grasmuck, Martin & Zhao, 163) and in turn “hide or de-emphasize the part of their selves they regard as socially undesirable, such as shyness, overweight, or stuttering. Inso doing, Facebook users project a self that is typically highly socially desirable;‘‘being popular among friends’’ was a claim that underlined many identity projects on Facebook.“ (ibid) However, whereas people often share photos primarily aimed for their close friends, they might expose more than they think to others as well; the “sense of audience” is less immediate on the internet than in the customary, in-person interaction. (ibid)
Steven Aishman connects useful terms introduced by Deleuze and Guattari to illustrate the unpredictable qualities of social networks; an individual is never fully in control. For him, posts on social media platforms are always contingent and in time their meaning is deterritorialized, which means that they can be understood as assemblages. (Aishman, 1) The deterritorialization taking place in the internet can happen very rapidly, since even basic virtual interaction intertwines with the original and therefore recreates a new assemblage. (ibid) For Aishman, the deterritorializing actions into which I referred as virtual interactions are Deleuzian lines-of-flight, and hints that by posting for example on Facebook, people seek for deterritorialization in order to feel less anxious about themselves. (ibid) Obviously, this effect operates backwards as well, if a post does not receive a certain amount of wanted virtual interaction, such as likes or positive reactions.
Whereas identity-centered behavior is central in all the social media platforms, since they rely more or less on representation of material subjects, the behavior can vary depending on the underlying concepts and the operating principles of these platforms. Naturally, the platforms are constantly developing and therefore changing their users’ behavior. Early social media platforms such as the Finnish IRC-Galleria were clearly closer to blogs than their superseidors Facebook and Twitter; the uploaded content was often less self-monitored and not meant for everyone to see. Obviously, during the first decade of the millennium, the internet felt smaller, people were less informed of social photography’s possible permanency and perhaps blinded by the sensation of freedom; innumerable amounts of these images still circulate on the internet, gaining new lives in comprehensively new contexts. Together with the evolution of the social platforms, also the people’s internet behavior has evidently changed during the past decade. Jodi Dean discusses the development of the user-generated, social side of the internet in his oeuvre Blog Theory (2010), explaining how the big social media platforms superseded blogging, which before that supposedly killed the mainstream media. (Dean, 39) “Rather than oriented around daily or even weekly posts on a regular set of themes or from a particular perspective, these large social network sites rely on brief, frequent updates to user profiles, lots of photos, and ever-growing lists of friends.” (ibid, 35) These short, irregular entries posted in one’s profile are also seemingly more authentic, “... in part because they are only glimpses, fragments, and indications rather than fully formed and composed reflections and in part because we witness them being seen by others.” (ibid, 36) As Grasmuck, Martin & Zhao as well found, he highlights that the friends and followers matter more in today’s popular platforms than the image of the blogger or her posted content-- especially because the users are allowed to see each other's friends and connections. (ibid, 35) “It’s like friendship lite or friendship without friendship (in other words, it’s in the overall series of objects or practices deprived of their harmful features that Slavoj Žižek associates with contemporary culture: beer without alcohol, sugar-free candy, coffee without caffeine, etc.). Even better: social network sites let us see ourselves being seen.” (ibid, 35-36)
Groys correspondingly reflected the position of an individual to the ‘others’ in relation to the social networks. He states that the practice of self-design is essential in order to become liked in contemporary society, which in itself has become “an exhibition space in which individuals appear as both artists and self-produced works of art”; (Axel, et al., 15) ”Even those whose activities are limited to taking selfies must still actively distribute them to get the “likes” they want. But self-design does not stop here. We also produce aesthetically relevant things and/or surround ourselves with things we believe to be impressive and seductive. And we act publicly—even sacrificing oneself in the name of a public good—in order to be admired by others” (ibid, 14) The latter example, concerning ‘aesthetically relevant things’ is present especially in the newer social media services and functions, which are programmed to delete the uploaded content from the public after certain amount of time. This kind of content is often considered as less relevant, but it still strongly contributes to the gaze, giving the viewers short, designed glimpses into one’s persona. At the end, everything an individual shares on her online profile can have a strong effect in this sense, since a certain idea is always shared simultaneously.
Among the years, the discussed platforms have made communication to others rapid and effortless, for its part leading to the formation of today’s popular concept, hyperconnectivity. Dean, with a reference to Michel Foucault, considers writing itself as an action affecting an individual's character: “... a way of making present one who is not there, of summoning a companion in the imagination in order to feel the pressure of the other’s gaze.” (Dean, 50) Apparently, the transformative powers of writing have been recognized very early in human history: “With the suppositions of an other and of shame before this other, first- and second-century Romans, Foucault argues, construe writing as a technique for changing the self, not simply for recording its thoughts or for reflecting on these thoughts.” (ibid) As noted, whereas talking about social media, the gaze, receiving the digital ‘letters’, for example as posts on Facebook or private messages, becomes more visible and immediate -- the companion is summoned in real time.
“We consume. We copy and repeat. We get corrupted and lose our data, only to abandon ourselves until our profiles are reborn. These techno-aesthetic strategies are embedded in the broadband, networked internet culture that today dominates in the developed world. That cell phone you are carrying tells the story.“ (Cornell & Hartel, 50)
Ian Buchanan, one of the leading contemporary Deleuze researchers, writes: “If, today, as Deleuze foresaw with typical acuity in his short paper on what he labelled 'the society of control', our credit card and social security numbers are more significant identity and place markers than the colour of our skin or where we went to school, that isn't because the 'meat' of our bodies has lately been superseded in its cultural significance by our bloodless digital 'profile'.” (Buchanan, 2) and notes, in relation to the earlier mentioned machines (tools) and the rebirth of God: “Whereas mechanical machines are inserted into hierarchically organised social systems, obeying and enhancing this type of structure, the Internet is ruled by no one and is open to expansion or addition at anyone's whim as long as its communication protocols are followed.” (ibid) In his view, Michel Foucault’s ideas in relation to the concept of body (and its duplication) compared to Deleuze and Guattari’s lack a convincing explanation of individual’s drives to become attached to the society and face its demands; simply, one is forced to do so. However, he sees Foucault's description as fruitful, because he considers the concept as social rather than individual: “we all have our own body without organs, but it is plugged into a larger entity that is the body without organs of all body without organs, or the plane of consistency. This larger entity that all our individual bodies without organs is plugged into is society's own body without organs and it is my contention that we can only properly understand this particular concept if we apprehend it at this level.” (ibid, 3)
Importantly, the internet’s gaze is not only limited to other people. Social media has created a virtual doppelganger of the society at large; also companies and institutions have had their virtual profiles created for similar reasons; to become liked and to make profit. However, unlike a decade ago, most of the large social media platforms today are themselves profit-making businesses, ready to put their users into a vulnerable position in order to benefit -- and the users are more or less aware of it -- if we follow Groys and consider the internet as the reborn God, then these large, often interconnected platforms are the bishops delivering his messages. Denisova formulates the setting as follows: “Digital communication is not purely user-generated and user-inhabited, but it constitutes a whirlpool of interactions between users, corporations and platform owners.” (Denisova, 14) Ultimately, the owners of the platforms are capable of manipulating individual expression through advertisements and design, (ibid) and according to Geert Lovink, the users of social media platforms are being taught to become scanning machines “where their speed of feed traversal and their clicks of a Like or Love produce endless potential for future profit that depends on ever increasing amounts of data. (Lovink, pg. 46) Obviously, the whirlpool illustrated by Denisova touches upon the notion of self-design as well, similarly to popular cultural phenomena in the offline world. People are highly affected by their environments both online and offline -- also the internet is today ruled in terms of capitalism. Jack Self even goes further and argues that today the so-called subjectivity of an individual is only a hallucination created by market forces and considers any kind of self expression as an action that “involves the donning of a persona, or even just a costume. There is no meaning to subcultural styles or fads, because they are all united by the same payment methods and social platforms.” (Axel, et.al 253-254)
The gaze of others is interpreted by Groys as an apparatus of objectification, which “negates the possibility of change that defines our subjectivity.” (Cornell & Halter, 361) and continues: “Sartre defined human subjectivity as a “project” directed toward the future -- and this project has an ontologically guaranteed secret because it can never be revealed here and now, but only in the future. In other words, Sartre understood human subjects as struggling against the identity that was given to them by society. That explains why he interpreted the gaze of others as hell: in the gaze of others, we see that we have lost the battle and remain a prisoner of our socially codified identity.” (ibid) Similar, extreme social objectification is present especially regarding internet viralities, such as memes; whereas anything can become a meme, also individuals can become “the heroes” of the memes -- suddenly the issue becomes ethical, since the subjects are “deprived of the basic right to privacy and control over her image and public representation.” (Denisova, 39) Whereas representation of a person becomes a subject to a meme or viral content, the hell described by Sartre becomes very evident. Similarly, in the context of my diploma project, a unique form of the Sartrean hell got constructed around the name, which came to unify hundreds of memes and viral images with similar content, portraying certain behavioral and visual qualities. However, here, the ‘gaze of others’ actively maintains the so-called codified identity by making memes, and the subjectivity of original subjects is drastically weakened; the identity of the original is dominantly constructed and strongly deterritorialized by the (perhaps anonymous) others. The original authors, responsible for sharing photographs of themselves on the internet, then ultimately lost their ability to practice self-design for their own good, and in Sartre’s words, became aware of the lost battle.