Essaymethodthereisamajorprobleminaustralia
Im interested in the construction of identity and particularly how online identity is formed through codes and communication in the online space. From Foucault to Harraway and to Lovink we can see how the self encounters different paths in everchanging societies. From a defensive mechanism due to the adimnistrative aspects of society to an embodied potentiality of "freedom", to an expression of technolibertarian utopias. But what is the current status of identity formation online? Is still the self and identities constructions of defense?Or do they exist as constructions of imperialistic tradition and history and as modules of participatory control? Crucial in this context are the aspects of language (code), communication (online communities, explosion of ICT in the neoliberal state) and online space (platforms, browsers ). I am arguing that our online identities are formed through participatory design methodologies that encorporate traditional information management/librarian methods, as information accesing, parsing, storing, evaluating, alongside with artistic/curatorial methods of mixing modules to create a new narrative, and publishing methods, when users re-distribute content, possibly in a new form. I think that the fundalmental model to understand these methodologies is the model of the database, mainly taking the notion of the database as a superpanopticon from Mark Poster.
In my exploration of the online identity formation processes I am exercising an extreme example of a users process. The series of works build with 3d generated models from the warehouse library of sketchup is an examplary process. I am collecting material made by the users,[here describe in more detail what I might see- you are making weird environments ] create abstract representation scenes and feeding the “outcomes” to another platform/ community. It is a process of creating subjective spaces online. In parallel I am working with the concept of the scrolling online flipbook and explore possibiliities of its implementation in different platforms.[ give example]
The first stage of the process includes the design of the scenes/subjective spaces.After searching, collecting and combing 3d generated models in the Warehouse library, I often mix the scenes with more information for example computer generated voices that narrate notes from my research or quotes/text by artists like Olia Lialina or philosophers like Jean Baudrillard. The “outcomes” can take various forms, from image sequences that work as an online flipbook in social platforms say Facebook or Googledocs, to animation for other artists sound works or digital collages. [images here] The second stage is then to redistribute this scenes into other online platforms. Here Im focusing more in the structure of the platform (the source or the new one) and its limitations. First taking the content from one and then exposing it to possibilities under different restrictions. The fixed structure of the fb album provides 4 images in each row and can handle almost 1.000 images per album. This is a totally diferent design that the G doc presentations platform which provides one slide per row on the left and a second central slide in the center which is the one one navigates in. This comparison shows how me but also the viewer need to engage in different ways with the existing design in order to distribute(me) or to see the work (viewer). The design of the scrolling flipbook works different in each platform and one can find/ decide/control (but within a limited range of choices of course) his own way in accessing the work and the sense of animation.[what forms can these aproaches take?]
Im interested to see how information collecting, remixing and redistributing consists as a collective design methodology towards identity construction online. I want to challenge also the limits of the systems and to misuse platforms(particularly the most popular ones) where these processes are beeing conducted.[what is the range of re-using/ recontextualizing mages and platforms?] So to say to challenge how a fixed closed structure like social networks can affect how one understands, constructs and presents oneself. And how can language , communication and online space transform these ways of seeing the self in the online world. During my research I encountered A. Anthony Giddens concept of the reflexive project of the self. He writes that in our societies one must put effort in order to create his/hers own coherent personal narrative through this explosion and fragmentation of information.[citations] I am arguing that this is exactly what we are asked to do to ourselves and to the others by the corporate capital , especially online. The way Google connects with Youtube and creates automatically a new updated and linked profile of a user shows this attitude towards control and coherent identities. What I am attempting to suggest is to remain fragmented and to use language, communication and online space towards a self multiplicity that rejects the coherent approach to the self +personal practise/tags . Even if Giddens was right in terms of a design of a personal narrative, what do we need the narrative when the fixed structures convey it for us? Regarding the participating design methodologies reffered above, I believe that its exactly this participatory and collective charakter that pushes it to the requested coherence, while we could oppose this understanding of a community driven control to a deeper understanding of what an identity consists of, and that is to say so collective that rejects the idea of the authorship of the self and its coherence automatically. I would like to connect this statement to Oliver Larics’s work and particularly his series “Versions” where he challenges representation and subjectivity through his narrative remix practise. In this work the multiple sources of the remixed content in allignement with the narrative approach reflect in a very precise way on authorship and originality in participatory society and I'm interested in applying his view in the topic of identity online. As an extreme example of a user I want to encorporate in my practise an extreme use of the platforms and the content themselves. Quoting Jodi, “playing these systems to their full potential, rather than carefully staying within the polite limits of expected use and instead programmatically driving their inputs through the full cycles of potentiality, the conceptual cracks begin to show.”