Re: [-empyre-] Digital Objects

[dragan.espenschied]

----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------

Now, with this being said - As Chun (2008) has discussed, and as Kristie and Dragan commented in their closing remarks (I think), despite the cascading complexity of the digital, and the dispersed apparatus that props it up, digital “stuff” does endure and frequently adopts a form that is remarkably easy to objectify, if only in appearance - the mouse pointer, an MP3 file, the selection tool (http://www.selectionasanobject.com/), a series of electronic gems (http://nicolassassoon.com/GEMS.html)… These things look like objects, act like objects, and (increasingly, as the distance between the digital and the physical closes,) feel like objects. Whether this is merely an ideological function of engineering or a matter of socio-cultural hallucination, the fact remains that "digital objects" are emerging as a contemporary phenomenon in need of critique... Let me point to this 2006 work of Marcin Ramocki: http://i.imgur.com/G35I6o7.png (Couldn't link to his website, all Flash.) The examples for digital objects above follow the object logic of‎ the social media stream. They become units because the social media software cannot divide them into smaller units. They can be posted as pictures, or addressed via an URL. In the case of the mouse pointer and the selection, they are bared from all process and life, like stuffed animals, they became pictures. However, since they are distributed on the Internet, there will always be a use for them. They can be reposted, commented on, manipulated with an image software. But the activity is enabled by their surroundings, by the system.‎ Any picture can become a "digital object" when it is digitized, any visual aesthetic can be declared digital via usage. So I don't think these frozen elements are inherently distinguishable as digital. Only their creation process is, they never existed outside the computer and were created with digital tools, not by digitalization.  So I think objects are only a useful unit for when the computer is turned off. ‎Apart from that, we deal with performances and activities. -- Dragan Espenschied Digital Conservator Rhizome at the New Museum 235 Bowery New York, NY 10002 212-219-1288 x 304 http://www.rhizome.org/

_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu