Premeditated Public Presence

The inevitable struck, and my publicly promoted pessimism towards the internet-cultural now finally worked its way from an occasionally blurted idea to the harsh reality of storage devices. In other words: I bid thee goodbye, social networking and ambient awareness platforms and tools.

All of it is inspired by personal skepticism that I have passionately (and negatively) portrayed as generally valid before - but with the state of discourse around those topics right now, I find there would be no purpose in presenting the carefully summarised and referenced text I meant to publish, as I do not seek to be part of it.

Instead, here's a short summary of the conclusion, compressed into the title here: put it in the context of information (on the web), active and passive.

[1] - actively seeking control of what is published about oneself to create that premeditated public presence. The content one actively wants people to see, without the bits and bobs one isn't sure about, or that people might easily misunderstand. Clear pictures. Content-creators weren't facing any of this before the dynamics of the web and it's applications broke lose. These days, being in "control" of publishing oneself entails largely unknown fluctuations, some of which even resonate from the past, and they are hard to master without partial damage.

[2] - an old big argument from the 90s: the Internet makes consumption of information an active process. Often, that is not the case anymore - hence, it's a restriction to gain more focus of ones environment, as one is perfectly capable to get the information that one wants and needs without the background noise that vibrates with most platforms today.

Fingers, heart, and focus.

Watched a portrait of Peter Kubelka - it was less about his work, more about him as person and his outlook on life. I must admit I'm not familiar with his body of work (except for small excerpts) but I can relate to a lot of what he said. For example, that it pains him if someone sees his movies as experimental - he experiences them as perfectly normal. Having grown up on the Austrian countryside, he advocates a kind of pro-visceral conservatism that ranges from how to eat saussages, over to barrel-making and listening to music: with fingers, heart and focus. Familiar thoughts.

With the way that he seems to deal with his environment on an emotional and intellectual level and I cannot help but feel a strong inner conflict that extends to the outside world. But then again, I'm wondering who I'd label artist that doesn't have that.