Imminent Self Week 1: Studio Brief and Initial Ideas

Imminent Self Week 1

Glitchy Art by Heitor Magno

Receiving the new brief

The new brief for intermediate studio practice is now live. Imminent self is a rather interesting concept to work with, the brief itself is asking us to consider ourselves within not only the present but also the perceptions of self within the digital present. It wants us to explore what the idea of self is and how it disseminates in the current techno-climate. Okay so back up, what the heck does that even mean? 

Well for starters lets actually take a look at what I can interpret from this. 

Lets look at the main word first, Self. Now self is the essential being that distinguishes ourselves from one another, this is defined through an evaluation by oneself of one's worth in distinction from one's interpersonal or social roles. Along side this is ego, ego is a person's sense of self esteem and importance and this is something that always moulds and remoulds as we go about our daily lives. An example of this would be receiving appraisal or succeeding making one feel better thus elevating one's moral.

(if oneself has to use the word one, one more time during this one paragraph, one is gonna puke.)

Imminent and present are fairly straight forward, things that are happening or about to happen. Perceptions of self within the digital present however is a little confusing personally, what I have interpreted from this is that self within a digital present is our identity on an online platform, social and digital media provides us with an opportunity to change our image and personality. We are able to have different identities, aliases and false personas that are detached from our actual identity from the real world. I myself use the effects of anonymity slightly with my Nythim alias as I use a skull helmet to conceal my physical identity online. 

Techno-climate really had me stumped at first, what I've taken from this is that we reside in a world that has become a technological habitat. Technology has become a staple tool within our daily lives and that the present world has become reliant on technology to function. The idea of self being spread widely through this current state of technological society. 

'allow yourself to be lost and confused - it is a productive state'

A point that was raised during the lecture is that we aren't researching the end of the project, one thing I did in the genealogies project is research the outcome straight away which limited and restricted room for experimentation. James stated that we shouldn't be approaching the brief with predefined aims, prejudices or predefined techniques. instead he wants us to be confused and to get lost within confusion using research to navigate it through defining key words, learning about philosophical concepts and how ideas intersect and conflict.

The brief mentions that we should consider, explore and synthesize the following three themes.

Autopoiesis:

The self-maintenance of an organized entity through its own internal processes. Consider your Autopoiesis your ‘self making’ — ‘self poetry’, your identity and its subsequent interactions with others. What defines you? And how does interaction with others affect that? Redefine the self portrait, the selfie.

Sociomaterial: 
Technologies are sociomaterial assemblages, an ensemble of people, materials, equipment, components, and institutions. The idea being that the technical is not reducible to the social, nor is the sociable reducible to the technical. How does the self — yourself — circulate in the sociomaterial world? Is it circulatory, or rhizomatic?

What I took from this is that Sociomaterial is a the theory built upon the intersection of technology, work and organisation, it's the interaction of technology and sociology. Also the creation of how people's work + activities are helped or shaped by technology. A brilliant example would be the Netflix series 'Black Mirror' the first episode of the third series in particular which I will be discussing later on. 

Network Ego 
Your ego, disseminated through a network – virtual and real. What is being said and what is being hidden as we endlessly curate and control the media perimeters of our lives. How has the acceleration and integration of social media affected the perception of ourselves and our egos?

My interpretation on this is that an ego is a person's sense of self-esteem or self importance. This is strongly in conjunction to networking because our self worth and esteem can be boosted and lowered through the use of the internet. Additionally it is the perception of 'Self' in a digital present. 

Techno-climate
one word in particular that got me a bit stumped was Techno-climate, this isn't actually a word other than something James put together to confuse us and interpret from. what i took from this is that techno is the intensity of technology and the difference of it such as primitive technology like an axe, compared to a more modern futuristic piece of technology like an iPhone or a computer. Climate can mean a region with a particular climate or even a prevailing trend of a public opinion. combining the two could perhaps mean the intensity of technology varying throughout culture and society or even how immensely technology takes part within our cultural and social regions, example being cities in Japan having a much more technological standing than a city in England or America. This is something I am definitely up for pondering and debate because i think the interpretation of this is much more expansive.