(summary)
This is chapter 2 of the book “Seeing Ourselves Through Technology”, and whereas the first chapter we read was about self representation (I.E. selfies and the like), this chapter is about filtering. The author talks about all of the different filtering we use today, some literal, and some figurative. Including, but not limited to, Snapchat filters, Instagram filters, and coffee filters. As with the first chapter, I really enjoyed the use of the dry humor and metaphor combination to get the message across. The premise of the book itself being, how technology has not only shaped our world, but shaped us as well. It was a shorter chapter than the first, but kept in tune with the theme and didn’t veer off. I would have never imagined there would be so much to talk about regarding filters, but I have been known to be wrong once or twice.
(some key terms and main ideas)
- Algorithmic Culture -the use of computational processes to sort, classify, and hierarchise people, places, objects, and ideas, and also the habits of thought, conduct and expression that arise in relationship to those processes.
- Discursive –digressing from subject to subject. The implication being that today people bounce from one thing to the next quite easily.
- Ethnography –the scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures. (As they relate to “Cultural Filters)
- Aestheticizing – represent (something) as being beautiful or artistically pleasing. (The very reason we “filter” things to begin with)
- Defamiliarization – render unfamiliar or strange (used especially in the context of art and literature).
- Technological Determinism –is a reductionist theory that assumes that a society’s technology determines the development of its social structure and cultural values. (We ARE our technology and vice versa)
(commentary)
Overall, I really like this book so far. I am one of the few in my class that has gotten to live through a lot of these changes and I remember almost each one and the affect it has had on us. Now, I did miss a little while I was incarcerated, but have done my best to catch up since I have been home. I, personally, don’t use a lot of technological filters (Snapchat and Instagram) but my future wife does, so I like to think that I am hip to, at the very least, the lingo and context that this chapter represents. In truth, I like how the author uses figurative thinking and metaphors to explain that we are doing our best to filter everything these days. Combined with chapter 1 on self representation, it’s as if he is suggesting that the way we think of OTHERS viewing us is more important than the way we view ourselves, or sometimes how the two things become one. I was also really interested in how journalists using filters for their own pictures and articles has become so “controversial.” Journalism, photographic especially, is just like any other art form and is subjective in its beauty. If I take a picture of something because in it I see something that maybe someone else might not, and I filter it in a way that it becomes more visible, is the original piece any less true? Maybe I am biased because of my history with art, but I would imagine that seeing something the way it is INTENDED to be seen would only ever help us understand something.
Two sides of the fence 