Published: (Updated: ) in Uncategorized by emma.

I’m not updating this a lot, but I’m doing things. Not into the idea that we need to appear constantly productive, engaged, profit-making, etc, either online or in the physical world. But for some reason I’m still compelled every now and then to check in to this site and make some sort of official declaration that

I’m plugging away hard as ever on things I find interesting, more concerned every day about the nexus of global ecological devastation and consumer capitalism, etc. A dissertation proposal, syllabus, some non-coursework essays, that kind of thing. Happy Summer ’17.

A lot of thoughts about data and control in particular. New writing from Rob Horning remind me that there are very useful departure points for my research:

“When we limit identity to consumer choices, it makes us more knowable to others in this datafied form than we are to ourselves. But being scored through our data also feeds the fantasy that we are essentially knowable, that we can know ourselves completely and totally, taking into account all the implications and ramifications of the various traits we possess. Algorithms promise a simple solution to the riddle of the self, should we want one. They promise the certainty that data alone suffices to make a self — just generate data and you are significant, a somebody, a unique identification number at the very least. One can accept the ready pleasure of consumerism rather than pursue the freedom of autonomy, which is always imperfect and requires boundless innovation in our techniques of resistance. We can learn the secret of ourselves, as long as we consent to be controlled.”

The rest is here: http://reallifemag.com/sick-of-myself/

Also I’ve been traveling. At some point I should post photos from Nashville, Brooklyn, Chicago, Dallas, and southern Virginia, AKA home for almost an entire year now. Time’s flying..

Comments

Leave a Reply