_i exist by implication_

My concept map on representation.

Betwixt being and non-being
An ontologically altered perception through the personal blog platform

In developing an individual identity and its consequential representations, a human being, as a cultural, social, and psychological entity, interprets, uses, and garners information from its surrounding environments. In the process, contexts are synthesized and associations are established. The management of these intuitive processes leads to the creation of personal thoughts, views and perspectives which are later shared through various forms of exchange.

The emergence of social networking sites, instant messaging platforms, discussion forums, email, collaborative online games, digital worlds, and particularly blogs, have transmuted the nature of these exchanges. Introspection has now become projection. Private realities have now expanded into contemporary shared conditions of public life. These outlets of personality provide versatile ways of sharing internal, and beforehand private anecdotal information with others.

The introduction of online blogging platforms during the late 1990’s made it easier than ever to share, communicate and contrast one’s individuality with the ideas of others in similar techno-social realities. As of March 2008, Technorati¹ calculated an estimated 112.8 million online blogs worldwide, a datum that needs to be pruned carefully since online does not equal active. There maybe that many blogs, but that does not mean there are exactly that same amount of active content generators behind them. There is no precise quantitative data on how many abandoned blogs exist, yet the available data does suggest a parallel growth between that of new blogs being published and those being simultaneously abandoned. Due to the free-of-charge nature of the majority of blog hosting domains, most of the blogs, even after being abandoned, remain online indefinitely.

I will try to make that case that through this ever-lasting online presence, contemporary communication platforms, such as the blog, can extend our sense of being, even after we become non-being.
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It’s here, the end of the semester is here. Contrary to undergraduate times, (when this was a time of exams, final projects and memorization as premonition of Christmas partying) graduate school’s end of semester calls out for (and brings about) reflection, introspection and self-evaluation.

Interestingly enough, I find myself in a sort of academic déjá vu.
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“The human experience of identity has two elements:
a sense of belonging and a sense of being separate.¹”

Now that we say more of our selves, are we saying less?

In 2006, for the first time in history, the Canadian National Census questionnaire made its way to the country’s 32.5 million residents. It included a new confidentiality question that asked Canadians to approve or disapprove of their personal information being included in the census. Historians feared that survey participants did not realize the importance of the option and initiated a publicity campaign to educate the country on the implications of such question, and on why people should care about it even though this census is released to the public in 2098. It was an education on how the information will be useful then, specially in regards to identity and the social way of living.

Contemporary digital environments have allowed a re-thinking of our selves and of how we relate, connect and present to/with others. The popularity of digital social networking sites, instant messaging platforms, discussion forums, email, the emergence of the blog as a publishing tool, collaborative online games, and live digital worlds like Second Life have transmuted the way personal identity is thought of and handled.

Online environments allow the users to digitally curate their own lives. The creation of these selves is managed through text, images and as of recently, video. Users can write/post/upload any information they want. Further depth can be achieved by having the digital content annotated, commented and further developed by others. This process is reciprocal in nature, for users can simultaneously act as others, commenting and annotating content. Someone’s digital public image is the product of the sum of individual interventions and social contributions. Personal and external texts are illustrating the image of who we become in a digital realm². Therefore, we exist by implication.
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] In Real Life ][ Real Life ][ Digital Life [

I keep exploring the landscape of digital vs real self. This is me in Second Life right now.  HAHAHA  

“Birth is when we get our identity.¹

“The human experience of identity has two elements:
a sense of belonging and a sense of being separate.²”

Our shadows played together as we walked, yet I am not able to tell you about it.

In 1976, two paleoanthropologists in a group led by anthropologist Mary Leakey, found, not far from the village of Laetoli in Tanzania, two pairs of fossils which today question the nature of those that existed before us. The discovery, as any of this nature, fuelled much debate. Some argue that the fossils, in fact footprints, were made by early hominids who resemble contemporary humans in stride and standing posture, while others, rooting their argument on the historical and artifactual record, challenge the idea that Laetoli marks were made by early iterations of us since there is no evidence of human culture or intelligence during that time period.

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New terms and ideas that I am being exposed to in the book Practices of Looking by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright.

] Objective [

The ideal state of being unbiased...

] Subjective [

Something that is particular to the view of an individual, hence the opposite of objective. A subjective view is understood to be personal, specific, and imbued with the values and beliefs of a particular person.
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New terms and ideas that I am being exposed to in the book Practices of Looking by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright.

] Simulation/Simulacra [

Terms most famously used by French theorist Jean Baudrillard that refer to a sign that does not clearly have a real-life counterpart. A simulacrum is not a representation of something, but is more difficult to distinguish from the real. Hence, it can be considered to be a kind of fake real that could potentially supercede the real. Baudrillard stated that to simulate a disease was to acquire its symptoms, thus making it difficult to distinguish between simulation and the actual disease. For example, a casino or amusement park simulacrum of the city of Paris can be seen as creating a substitution for the actual city, and can perhaps for some viewers seem to be more real than the city itself. The term simulation is often used to describe aspects of postmodern culture in which copies and realities get blurred.
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New terms and ideas that I am being exposed to in the book Practices of Looking by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright.

] Abstraction [
The quality of being conceived apart from concrete realities.

] Capitalism [
An economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth are held primarily by individuals and corporations, as opposed to cooperative or state owned means of wealth. Capitalism is based on an ideology of free trade, open markets, and individuality. In capitalism, the use value of goods (how they are used) matter less than their exchange value (what they are worth on the market). Marxist theory is a critique of the ways that the system of capitalism is based on inequality and exploitation of workers, allowing a few to prosper while many have only limited means.

] Flaneur [
A french term theorized explicitly by cultural critics such as Walter Benjamin, that refers to a person who wanders city streets taking in the sights, especially those of consumer society. In other words, the flaneur is a kind of window shopper, with the implication that the act of looking at the gleaming offerings of commodity culture is itself a source of pleasure wether or not one actually ever purchases anything. The flaneur is simultaneously in the world of consumerism and detached from the cityscape around him.
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New terms and ideas that I am being exposed to in the book Practices of Looking by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright.

] Spectacle [

A term that generally refers to something that is striking or impressive in its visual display. The term spectacle was used by French theorist Guy Debord, in his book Society of the Spectacle, to describe how representations dominate contemporary culture, and all social relations are mediated by and through images.

] Mass Media [

Those media which are designed to reach mass audiences, and that work in unison to generate specific dominant or popular representations of events, people and places.

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