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The great ideological cliche of our time, Cesar Rendueles argues in
Sociophobia, is the idea that communication technologies can
support positive social dynamics and improve economic and political
conditions. We would like to believe that the Internet has given us
the tools to overcome modernity's practical dilemmas and bring us
into closer relation, but recent events show how technology has in
fact driven us farther apart. Named one of the ten best books of
the year by Babelia El Pais, Sociophobia looks at the root causes
of neoliberal utopia's modern collapse. It begins by questioning
the cyber-fetishist dogma that lulls us into thinking our passive
relationship with technology plays a positive role in resolving
longstanding differences. Rendueles claims that the World Wide Web
has produced a diminished rather than augmented social reality. In
other words, it has lowered our expectations with respect to
political interventions and personal relations. In an effort to
correct this trend, Rendueles embarks on an ambitious reassessment
of our antagonistic political traditions to prove that
post-capitalism is not only a feasible, intimate, and friendly
system to strive for but also essential for moving past consumerism
and political malaise.
Intelligence services, government administrations, businesses, and
a growing majority of the population are hooked on the idea that
big data can reveal patterns and correlations in everyday life.
Initiated by software engineers and carried out through algorithms,
the mining of big data has sparked a silent revolution. But
algorithmic analysis and data mining are not simply byproducts of
media development or the logical consequences of computation. They
are the radicalization of the Enlightenment's quest for knowledge
and progress. Data Love argues that the "cold civil war" of big
data is taking place not among citizens or between the citizen and
government but within each of us. Roberto Simanowski elaborates on
the changes data love has brought to the human condition while
exploring the entanglements of those who-out of stinginess,
convenience, ignorance, narcissism, or passion-contribute to the
amassing of ever more data about their lives, leading to the
statistical evaluation and individual profiling of their selves.
Writing from a philosophical standpoint, Simanowski illustrates the
social implications of technological development and retrieves the
concepts, events, and cultural artifacts of past centuries to help
decode the programming of our present.
Intelligence services, government administrations, businesses, and
a growing majority of the population are hooked on the idea that
big data can reveal patterns and correlations in everyday life.
Initiated by software engineers and carried out through algorithms,
the mining of big data has sparked a silent revolution. But
algorithmic analysis and data mining are not simply byproducts of
media development or the logical consequences of computation. They
are the radicalization of the Enlightenment's quest for knowledge
and progress. Data Love argues that the "cold civil war" of big
data is taking place not among citizens or between the citizen and
government but within each of us. Roberto Simanowski elaborates on
the changes data love has brought to the human condition while
exploring the entanglements of those who-out of stinginess,
convenience, ignorance, narcissism, or passion-contribute to the
amassing of ever more data about their lives, leading to the
statistical evaluation and individual profiling of their selves.
Writing from a philosophical standpoint, Simanowski illustrates the
social implications of technological development and retrieves the
concepts, events, and cultural artifacts of past centuries to help
decode the programming of our present.
Facebook claims that it is building a "global community." Whether
this sounds utopian, dystopian, or simply self-promotional, there
is no denying that social-media platforms have altered social
interaction, political life, and outlooks on the world, even for
people who do not regularly use them. In this book, Roberto
Simanowski takes Facebook as a starting point to investigate our
social-media society-and its insidious consequences for our concept
of the self. Simanowski contends that while they are often
denounced as outlets for narcissism and self-branding, social
networks and the practices they cultivate in fact remake the self
in their image. Sharing is the outsourcing of one's experiences,
encouraging unreflective self-narration rather than conscious
self-determination. Instead of experiencing the present, we are
stuck ceaselessly documenting and archiving it. We let our lives
become episodic autobiographies whose real author is the algorithm
lurking behind the interface. As we go about accumulating more
material for the platform to arrange for us, our sense of self
becomes diminished-and Facebook shapes a subject who no longer
minds. Social-media companies' relentless pursuit of personal data
for advertising purposes presents users with increasingly targeted,
customized information, attenuating cultural memory and fracturing
collective identity. Presenting a creative, philosophically
informed perspective that speaks candidly to a shared reality,
Facebook Society asks us to come to terms with the networked world
for our own sake and for all those with whom we share it.
In a world increasingly dominated by the digital, the critical
response to digital art generally ranges from hype to counterhype.
Popular writing about specific artworks seldom goes beyond
promoting a given piece and explaining how it operates, while
scholars and critics remain unsure about how to interpret and
evaluate them. This is where Roberto Simanowski intervenes,
demonstrating how such critical work can be done.
"Digital Art and Meaning" offers close readings of varied examples
from genres of digital art such as kinetic concrete poetry,
computer-generated text, interactive installation, mapping art, and
information sculpture. For instance, Simanowski deciphers the
complex meaning of words that not only form an image on a screen
but also react to the viewer's behavior; images that are
progressively destroyed by the human gaze; text machines generating
nonsense sentences out of a Kafka story; and a light show above
Mexico City's historic square, created by Internet users all over
the world.
Simanowski combines these illuminating explanations with a
theoretical discussion that employs art philosophy and history to
achieve a deeper understanding of each particular example of
digital art and, ultimately, of the genre as a whole.
The great ideological cliche of our time, Cesar Rendueles argues in
Sociophobia, is the idea that communication technologies can
support positive social dynamics and improve economic and political
conditions. We would like to believe that the Internet has given us
the tools to overcome modernity's practical dilemmas and bring us
into closer relation, but recent events show how technology has in
fact driven us farther apart. Named one of the ten best books of
the year by Babelia El Pais, Sociophobia looks at the root causes
of neoliberal utopia's modern collapse. It begins by questioning
the cyber-fetishist dogma that lulls us into thinking our passive
relationship with technology plays a positive role in resolving
longstanding differences. Rendueles claims that the World Wide Web
has produced a diminished rather than augmented social reality. In
other words, it has lowered our expectations with respect to
political interventions and personal relations. In an effort to
correct this trend, Rendueles embarks on an ambitious reassessment
of our antagonistic political traditions to prove that
post-capitalism is not only a feasible, intimate, and friendly
system to strive for but also essential for moving past consumerism
and political malaise.
Digital media is increasingly finding its way into the discussions
of the humanities classroom. But while we have a number of grand
theoretical texts about digital literature we as yet have little in
the way of resources for discussing the down-to-earth practices of
research, teaching, and curriculum necessary for this work to
mature. This book presents contributions by scholars and teachers
from different countries and academic environments who articulate
their approach to the study and teaching of digital literature and
thus give a broader audience an idea of the state-of-the-art of the
subject matter also in international comparison.
On Facebook and fake news, selfies and self-consciousness, selling
our souls to the Internet, and other aspects of the digital
revolution. With these engaging and provocative essays, Roberto
Simanowski considers what new media has done to us. Why is digital
privacy being eroded and why does society seem not to care? Why do
we escape from living and loving the present into capturing,
sharing and liking it? And how did we arrive at a selfie society
without self-consciousness? Simanowski, who has been studying the
Internet and social media since the 1990s, goes deeper than the
conventional wisdom. For example, on the question of Facebook's
responsibility for the election of Donald Trump, he argues that the
problem is not the "fake news" but the creation of conditions that
make people susceptible to fake news. The hallmark of the Internet
is its instantaneousness, but, Simanowski cautions, speed is the
enemy of depth. On social media, he says, "complex arguments are
jettisoned in favor of simple slogans, text in favor of images,
laborious explorations at understanding the world and the self in
favor of amusing banalities, deep engagement in favor of the
click." Simanowski wonders if we have sold our soul to Silicon
Valley, as Faust sold his to the Devil; credits Edward Snowden for
making privacy a news story; looks back at 1984, 1984, and Apple's
famous sledgehammer commercial; and considers the shitstorm,
mapping waves of Internet indignation-including one shitstorm that
somehow held Adidas responsible for the killing of dogs in Ukraine.
"Whatever gets you through the night," sang John Lennon in 1974.
Now, Simanowski says, it's Facebook that gets us through the night;
and we have yet to grasp the implications of this.
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