Author: Hannah L.

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If you’re anything like me, the experience of grocery shopping at Harris Teeter is akin to navigating a database. Harris Teeter’s aisles serve as categories (Produce, Dairy, International, etc.) that contain lists of items (parsley, eggs, salsa). Of course, I choose the order in which I engage with these categories (I usually go to Produce first, then make my way across the store—maybe this is my own algorithm of sorts), but my experience could hardly be construed as narrative. Manovich points out that an arbitrary linear sequence does not on its own constitute a narrative. So perhaps grocery stores appeal to database logic?

Manovich contends that the database is the key form of cultural expression of the computer age, eclipsing the narrative as articulated through literature and cinema. Because this is a blog post and the stakes are relatively low, I’d like to make an ambitious theoretical maneuver: perhaps the database is the favored form of cultural expression because it better coheres with neoliberal ideas of market and consumer.

Indeed, the “storage mania” that Manovich cites seems predicated on the idea of data as property; the accumulation of data is desirable, then, because it corresponds with the accumulation of capital. In this paradigm, narrative becomes undesirable insofar as it is a smaller container than a database. I admit that this assumption is tenuous: Are fewer data stored in a novel than in an encyclopedia? I don’t know.

Similarly, consumerism relies on paradigmatic ways of thinking and rejects syntagmatic ones. The paradigmatic generates consumer desire by underlying the accessibility of choice and infinite possibility. I can, for example, browse a dozen different online retailers (databases) to find the perfect pair of shoes. Because the syntagmatic emphasizes what is present, rather than alternate possibilities, it is less compatible with consumer ideals.

These are obviously some big ideas with a lot of assumptions that should be unpacked, but I think the connection between databases and market capitalism is worth exploring.

Posted from Digital Studies by Hannah L.

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Samuel Woolley’s “How to Think About Bots” provides fodder for important ethical conversations around culpability and digital autonomy, but also for philosophical conversations around authorship and art. I was vaguely aware that bots routinely produce articles and writing, but I always thought it would be easy to distinguish such articles as “bot writing.” But when I took the New York Times quiz that Woolley cites, “Did a Computer or a Human Write This?”, I earned a devastating 3/8 (apparently better than 8% of players). All this is to say that bots are incredibly successful at reproducing patterns of human writing and discourse. It really makes me wonder why I have spent my college education programming my brain with the rules of Strunk and White, agonizing over word choice and split infinitives, when a bot can produce similar-quality writing at a much faster pace.

Indeed, even the kind of carefully crafted speech called for in response to a tragedy may be predicted and replicated by a bot. My friend and fellow Davidson student Arianna Montero-Colbert created a bot that generates institutional responses to tragedies—you know, the kind of campus-wide email we get from CQ after a devastating shooting or police killing that makes vague calls for “unity” and “dignity” rather than any kind of coherent political action. Arianna’s bot is scary good at imitating those detached, performative responses, and the results are chilling . We might consider tragedies as occasions that call for some novel or groundbreaking commentary, but Tragedy Bot shows us that even CQ’s eloquent prose adheres to discursive patterns, tropes, and clichés that can be replicated by a bot.

 

Posted from Digital Studies by Hannah L.

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In this lab, I introduce three counter-GIFs that respond to and subvert the conventions of various GIF genres.

Reaction GIF

Example:

Counter-Example:

This counter-GIF subverts the conventions of the reaction GIF by drawing attention to the difference between the affect depicted in a GIF and the GIF-user’s actual affect. Although animated GIFs imply that the depicted action is the same as the user’s embodied action, this is often not the case. Indeed, as reaction GIFs become more dramatic, the gulf between our embodied reactions and those depicted in GIFs widens.

Miltner and Highfield (2017) claim that conciseness is a defining feature of reaction GIFs, arguing that reactions GIFs “plac[e] attention on a single visual action, feeling, or response” (5). The parallel and opposite reactions displayed in the counter-GIF subvert the notion that reaction GIFs depict singular, concise gestures.

Cinemagraph GIF

Example:

Counter-Example:

In cinemagraph GIFs, one element of the image moves while the rest remains still. Because of their aesthetic appeal, cinemagraph GIFs are often used for “higher” artistic purposes, such as visually quoting films or creating artistic advertisements.  “A Brief History of the GIF” (2014), Jason Eppink claims that cinemagraph GIFs “typically fetishize a consumer good or identity” (303). The first GIF depicts an idyllic lifestyle, complete with a candle and avocados as props. In the second GIF, there is still only one element that moves (the bags blowing in the wind) but its content, a trash can, is decidedly unaesthetic.

Fandom GIF

Example:

Counter-Example:

Fandom GIFs often portray the moment that a fan’s OTP (one true pairing) gets together. Looped ad infinitum, the fandom GIF provides a way for fans to relive their favorite moments in a series. Accordingly, the first GIF pictures the moment that Jim and Pam share their first kiss on NBC’s The Office.

In the second GIF, however, the happy moment is interrupted and spliced with images of the two characters’ competing love interests. First there is Pam’s season 1 fiancé, Roy; then Jim’s seasons 2-3 girlfriend, Karen; and finally Pam’s season 9 flirtation, Brian. The quality of being “stuck in time” is undermined by including characters who appear throughout the show’s nine seasons.

Posted from Digital Studies by Hannah L.

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When scrolling through Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr in 2017, we are likely to find various iterations of “it me.” Sometimes the self-identification is in response to a GIF (e.g., “literally me rn”) or sometimes the GIF is the punchline (e.g., the caption “me when my food is ready” followed by reaction GIF of someone crying tears of joy). On Tumblr, the “me”-ing often takes the form of a tag, as in #me. Instagram has even added an “it me” sticker for your stories.

The AUDACITY

A post shared by Lola Tash and Nicole Argiris (@mytherapistsays) on Sep 25, 2017 at 10:19am PDT

The issue of digital blackface outlined by Lauren Michele Jackson becomes even more problematic in this culture saturated with self-identification. Nonblack internet users are not just circulating images of black people. The act of saying “it me” clarifies that using a reaction GIF is an act of identification with the image, not merely an act of appreciation or propagation.

This difference may be subtle, but it matters. When you use a black reaction GIF, you situate the desirable elements of the GIF (its humor, its sassiness, whatever) as an extension of yourself. As Jackson puts it: “We are your sass, your nonchalance, your fury, your delight, your annoyance, your happy dance, your diva, your shade, your “yaas” moments.”

Because GIFs have developed into an authorless form, there is no way (or perhaps no motivation) to credit the original author or the people who appear in the GIF. Giving credit to the author or to the people who appear in a GIF may be one way of saying “it them”–of differentiating between your use of the GIF and your total self-identification with it.

 

Posted from Digital Studies by Hannah L.

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Do self-identified tree huggers hesitate before replying-all to an email? According to an infographic published by Kualo (an internet hosting service powered by renewables), those concerned about the environmental impact of the internet should take steps like opting to use a smartphone over a laptop for quick searches, unsubscribing from email blasts, and limiting use of the reply-all feature on email. These energy-reducing internet habits seem far from mainstream—most people tend to talk about their internet use as relatively carbon-neutral, an ethical non-factor. Until I read Ingrid Burrington’s The Environmental Toll of a Netflix Binge, I too thought of my use of digital technology in relatively unproblematic terms.

Why is the public generally oblivious or apathetic to the environmental impact of digital technologies? One could speculate that our conception of technology as immaterial and ephemeral masks technology’s role in material processes like climate change. We cannot see the fiberoptic cables or the massive data centers that make the global internet possible, and so therefore they fail to capture our attention.

While raising consumer consciousness is certainly one part of the solution, we should be wary of narratives that foist the burden of sustainability on consumers and individuals rather than powerful institutions. Sure—we can stop replying all to emails just like we started bringing reusable bags to the grocery store, but we should be clear that the responsibility to build sustainable digital infrastructure lies with corporations and governments. Hugely profitable companies like Faceboook, Google, HBO, and Amazon need to continue the push for a transition to renewables. Even if such companies are only in it for the PR, it’s a net good.

 

 

 

Posted from Digital Studies by Hannah L.

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Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Posted from Hannah Lukow by Hannah L.