The title of this blog is edit therefore I am. My intent is to observe the editable web but also to think about one larger topic : Virtual Identity and self-(re)presentation. Editing is fictional when it comes to editing representations of me.
To a man with a Twitter account, every action is a pretext.
What are you doing? is the question Twitter asks you to answer. But in the world of Twitter, there can be only one honest answer: I am twittering. Any other answer is a fib, a fabrication - a production.
As with other media of the self, Twitter makes the act subservient to its expression. It turns us into observers of our own lives, and not in the traditional sense of self-consciousness (watching with the inner eye) but in the mass media sense (watching with the eye of the producer). As the Observer Effect tells us, the act of observing the act changes the act.
I like the way Nicholas present this idea of having an act that is subservient to its expression. It’s not always the case (but it’s perfect for twitter). Generally, Editing is post production. And I will also make my own parallel. Editing makes the idea of the act uberservient to its realization. A kind of Hawthorne effect, or if i use images let’s say it’s photoshopping what was.
This is a personal example of this second process. During each of my European Tour Trip I am taking lot’s of pictures since I don’t do editing at all (no cropping, no photoshop) but I am doing an animated video (using animoto) which is post production. I do choose the music setting the atmosphere, I organize the pictures and create effect by assembling them. I know that it will be largely viewed (the one from the lensecamp currently has more than 1500 views), so I Hawthorne the trip and I am guilty of the observer effect. It’s looks probably more intense than reality
I invite you to read
- this great post from Nicholas Carr (long time since i last quoted him) about aphorism because his other example taken from the netocrate Geert Lovink is great.
- A blogpost from Danah on status : markers of status: different, and yet the same. In that post she describes exactly what i do believe in. Status will become specialize therefore applying to sub-culture.
Metrics for status have become diversified. [...] the status that matters is that which is conferred in everyday life. [...] I think that we’ll continue to see fantastic examples of individuals achieving status through their networked participation, but I don’t think that this will ever become mainstream.[...] And we will continue to see new subcultures with new markers of subcultural capital.
Status and markers are the reason why we subservient our uberservient our life or should i say our editing.
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