Collage. Lady Elliot Island, 2012. Catherine Hughes.
The curated self – is it authentic? Are our carefully constructed collages pure artifice? Are we all really too busy taking photos of ourselves and sharing our lives through social media actually to experience them? Well, maybe. But constructing ourselves as subjects through collating, arranging, reflecting on experiences is probably not a new thing.
Foucault this week – and Beckett.
The title quote of this post is from Foucault’s “What is an Author“, quoting Samuel Beckett, so I’ve been re-reading my Beckett this week: “I did not want to write, but I had to resign myself to it in the end. It is in order to know where I have got to, where he has got to. At first I did not write, I just said the thing. Then I forgot what I had said. A minimum of memory is indispensable, if one is to live really.” (Malone Dies)
Unsurprisingly, Web 2.0 has revived interest in Foucault’s idea of technologies of the self – the way in which individuals can transform themselves, their bodies, their thoughts or their ways of being in order to attain a certain state of happiness, wisdom or immortality. Macnamara and others point out that the technologies of 2.0 allow us new ways to write ourselves into existence. But none of this is new. Foucault also examined the way in which, since classical times, we have written as an act of self-creation. Some of the technologies he identified were: journals, notebooks or ‘life books’ – tools that allow us to collect the ephemera that catch our eye and that we want to record: quotes, observations, reflections. Sound familiar?
But is there a difference between writing oneself for oneself and posting for the the world to see? Is that the introvert / extrovert thing again? And is it just too retro and postmodern to want to see some kind of space between signifier and signified in which meaning can be created? Is the immediacy of being able to post without reflection something new?
Or not?
Beckett again: “Yes, no reflection is needed, before or after…”, “Notice, I notice nothing, I go on as best I can, if it begins to mean something I can’t help it.” (The Unnameable)
I think what may be new is how easy it is for others to see through artifice – you’re not the only person “writing” yourself, others are also doing that for you and can also challenge your stories – this may not worry the extrovert, but will probably lead to careful selection by the introvert and a consequent hiding of personality. I think the introvert will also object to being judged or labelled, where the extrovert may not care. I can’t pretend to have ever understood Foucault, and while I may like some Becket work, his musings aren’t my favourites. I still think that people are people, not technologies, and that mechanising people in any way is a dangerous, dangerous thing – it is much easier to cull the production line for efficiency than it is to sack a person. I can’t see writings as “technologies”, I see them as an expression of our values in one way or another. Cheers, geoff
Thanks Geoff – and welcome. Yes, agree with your comments – particularly about technologies. I don’t think I would say writings were technologies. That’s not how I read Foucault, but I may not really have understood him clearly yet either. I would see the technologies as the tools that allow us to express ourselves through writing. And yes, I think what we write does express our values and we do need to understand that and take responsibility. The humanity aspect is important too in the context of anonymity and trolling / hate speech on the web that some of us have been discussing. More things to think about! Cheers, Catherine.
Hi Catherine I love your philosophic thoughts!
I believe that in many cases there is a difference between writing oneself for oneself and posting for the the world to see.
As I have discussed in Sara’s Facebook page Life 2.0 in the case of young people re-creating themselves “posting for the world to see” give to them an opportunity to show what they really want to have and become because,in real life, they cannot do everything they wish to do because of their age and immaturity. For more of this discussion follows: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Life-20/315894508527680
Thanks Consuelo. Always great to hear from you – and thanks as ever for your great references. I think it is interesting to look at how young people are expressing themselves online. One question I have is what are the implications of doing that publicly? What will happen to the generation of people who have grown up with all their teenage angst captured and recorded for posterity? I know there’s a lot been written about this – but maybe it’s another topic for a blog? Catherine.
Hi Catherine, interesting topic and yes the curated self is vey real…now that I’m having to think about it first hand with each and every one of my posts as I’m sure many of us do. I read an article recently where the author uses a dramaturgical backdrop to discuss notions of whether our on line presence is a performance or an exhibition and if an exhibition who is curating, are we or is it a third party? Troublingly the author linked the ultimate form of third party curating to on line identity. Can’t give you link but the article is – The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions Online
Bernie Hogan, Bulletin of Science Technology & Society 2010 30: 377 originally published online 1 November 2010 – I think I got it on line at UTS but if you have trouble let me know.
Cheers Roxanne
Thanks Roxanne. Good point – and I think that echoes the comment from Geoff that one of the implications of current media is that we’re not the only ones writing our lives. We may have given up more control than we realise to other people. Thanks for the reference, will read with interest. Catherine
I think Web 2.0 and all its ‘social media’ incarnations does give us new ways to live our lives in the third person – ie to have a “detached relationship to living” as Paula Marantz Cohen (no date) says in The New Curated Self article you’ve linked to. Although she refers to times when she had the same experience being photographed as a child, the tools for doing the framing were in fewer hands (ie the parents with the camera). Now, seemingly everyone, certainly seemingly every teenager (in white, first world countries), has a smartphone and can photograph themselves at short notice, perhaps not always wisely, and concentrate on their representation on social media platforms without engaging with what’s really going on around them.
There seems to be an increasing trend (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard/2012/mar/05/can-facebook-ruin-job-prospects) of employers checking Facebook for details about a prospective employee and I’ve heard interviews where people – HR specialists perhaps – say anyone who doesn’t do this is crazy. I think this is a bridge too far, but then again could contribute to some self-regulation by the people seeking work, which could be in their best interests long-term. But is it authentic . .. hmmmm
Thanks Maree. Nice to hear from you. Yes, I’ve been thinking this is another angle I should explore. Consuelo made the point earlier that social media are a great way for young people to explore their emerging identity. But I think we’re seeing that doing that in public does come with some risks. The article you linked to makes a good point that employers do need to think about how they’re going to interpret the information they get from people’s public profiles. That’s probably as much part of the transition we’re going through as is the issue of people needing to realise that employers are going to be looking at their online presence.