On Second Thought

Sitting here amidst the Glow of my very own LCD screen it has become overly apparent that I am thinking, processing, and synthesizing within a new medium. The Glowing, computerized text that is being processed, and illuminated according to my keystrokes is diametrically different to the analog, printed text of even my youth (only a few years removed). It seems also incredibly apparent, and important to note that in a class about the Future of Imaging, visual cultrure, and society’s interaction within these realms we are still predominantly functioning in a linear, concrete and analog pattern of learning, constructing, synthesizing, and publishing ideas. This is to say that, we as a class find no qualms in the weekly structure of readings, printed text responses, and three hours of classroom discussion, when in contrast the ideas we are exploring are functioning in a very different way.

As someone who grew up on the cusp of the digital revolution, I have been educated in this hybrid manner since grade school. Indocrinated into the culture of the Glow, and depepdency upon this system of our age. Daily lessons on computers in order to learn the new technology, but still with precautions taken by educators to insure a “firm grounding” in the established system(s) of thought that are prevalent in the American primary education system; such as the blanket disallowing of internet research as valid support material, when in actuality printed media has an equal amount of opportunity to falsify its presentation (Conducting Research on the Internet, Evaluating Internet Research Sources) Recently, when I began to research a paper on surfers as a utopiatic global tribe I began in this traditional sense to search through predominantly print-based libraries, but searching them through their recently digitized catalogs I realized that the complete story was no longer available in the traditional library, even with its reactionary attempts (New York University Library) to modernize approaches in information gathering and dissemination.

The Library of Alexandria Model in the physical sense at that point became dead to me, and the global, radial model (Collaborative Global Library) came alive. In order to create an image of this roaming subculture (Surfing) that would be complete enough, it became necessary to decentralize the research, and thus the construction of the idea itself. A nomadic surfer, just as information itself no longer has centricity in the context of the digital, or decentralized society. A surfer however, has always existed on the periphery, lateral to the “forward” thrust of civilization, whereas information and the search for knowledge has historically existed as a central theme of civilization’s intent. In navigating the radial network of mediation in today’s age I’ve realized that the information is not the central attraction or drive anymore, but however it is the Glowing LCD and the teletechnological mediums themselves that I am immersed in. A few weeks ago, the United States Congress issued a press release promoting an initiative that would create a “World Digital Library“, bringing together documents and information from partnering countries around the world in order to synthesize a “web” of online digital libraries. This is to say, that while the Library of Congress is attempting to make its system a meta resource, it is at least understanding that the it is not feasible, or effective to try and reign in under one nation, and located on one site such a vast array of information. Google Inc. recently funded $3 Billion USD, towards the development of this radial network of global digital libraries, and for me it would be difficult to imagine in the traditional system, a large corporation primarily invested in the movement of information such as Xerox, taking such a financial interest in seeing the success of tradtional library spaces. However, Google understands its most profitable focus is in providing access, and dissemination to as much information as possible, and it thus thrives on this interconnected map of hyper-transmission, and ultimately we, the end users’ connection to the Glow of our LCD screen.

The Glow of the screen is at war with light reflected (more later); traditional billboards with lights illuminating the visual are constantly being surrounded, and replaced by electronic boards that glow outwards, reach towards the passerby’s innate snese of glazed connection to this medium. Everything in my life glows at me with this depraved sense of longing to be browsed, my cell phone, computer screen, microwave, mp3 player, camera, television, etc. and it certainly has changed the way I think, even as someone who is trying to be concious of how the devices are manipulating my existence. Just as I’ve sat here trying to type out these thoughts, over a week has passed, the standard interruptions of linear time have occurred, the necessity for sleep, eating, etc., but also my disconnections within these Glowing devices have doubled effects. Simultaneously, I have been more distracted in tenfold by the multitasking that is inenvitible; the “windowed life” (but that is for another day’s conversation), but at the same time there is the obvious pluralism of information that actually does apply to what I’ve been thinking about, which complicates the process even further. It becomes on some level Borges “Library of Babel” in which the information you are searching for is there among every potential combination of text, but you run the potential of becoming one of the “hombres de la bibiloteca” (men of the library) over the course of your search, doomed to die amongst the stacks (or Glow), without the answers you most desire.

The rectilinear Glow has been around since the birth of cinema, being passed down primarily through television, and that great mediator has bequeathed its physical structure to all of our digital devices. This amalgamation of devices, and the radial network of information that winds through, and pervades our daily lives has ultimately spawned my mode of decentralized thinking. McLuhan certainly applies more than ever, and as the Glow is ever more enrapturing one must gain distance from it to understand its implications, and alterations to society’s thought process, so how do we escape the Glow? Perhaps the surfers have the answer.