Feel like I'm jumping the gun by jumping into this stream because I have only read maybe 25% of these posts, but I'm so inspired and hungry to speak I have contribute. So I started a Google Doc last night, titled Dematerialization, and I've jotted down some notes. Hell one day I might make it public. Here's one of the paragraphs, hope I'm not re-treading:
I think we can extend digitalization beyond life in or on the screen, and into life experienced through the screen. Examples: people at events like concerts who “experience” the event through the phone. It’s as if the event exists not to be experienced but to be “recorded” and “shared.” But to me this just means devoured and homogenized. Or say someone who takes photos of their meals. What is the primary experience, what matters more, making their friends jealous with this glamorous photo of their fucking meal, or the experience of eating it? I mean, you could keep going. Every experience now is an opportunity to photograph, film, record and share the “experience.” I mean honestly, when a young person visits the Eiffel Tower or the Sistine Chapel or whatever, what do you think they want more, what is primary in their minds, is it to experience this great monument, or is it to photograph or film themselves there to show all their "friends"?* This applies not just to experiences but to thoughts and internal consciousness itself. When you have an interesting idea or insight, or a funny observation, is the first impulse to develop that idea, turn it over in your head, make it grow? Or do you want to let the screen suck it in, devour it, record it, neutralize it, and “share” or spread it on social media, which is like this smooth flat all-enveloping surface where everything is equalized/neutralized/homogenized?
*(or is it "followers," or is either appropriate... it just seems like "machinic appendage" or "parasitic symbiote" might work just as well)?