👍 My Photos Feel Like An Emotional Trap
I feel like I have a lot more processing to do around the illness that digital photos introduce into my life. It isn’t just the number of photos, it is the many places where I put them. It is the performance I do with them online each day, across many web properties—mine, and other 3rd parties. It is unacceptable that I don’t take better care of digital self, curating, cleaning, organizing and being more thoughtful about the photos I produce, keep, or let disappear. It means for a healthier, saner, happier me, but it also reduces the vector for technology companies to get their hooks in me with their FREE storage, easy sharing, and other ways in which they monetize my digital self, and extract value from my daily behavioral exhaust.
This reminds me of Kin Lane’s questions about photography and why we take so many digital shots.
I find this such an interesting topic David. As I have said previously, it is a topic that Kin Lane has recently been diving into. Personally, managing everything from my own space has made me more mindful of what I share. I think that being more informed about what sort of information and data we are both collecting and collating. Although I am not sure what this looks like for the future, I think that centralising my data and practices makes archiving more doable.
John Philpin takes a dive into the world of data. He discusses some of the dangers associated with simplifying things, articlutes some of the hidden complexities, pushes back on various analogies, such as oil, soil, water and music, and argues that data is best understood as energy:
This reminds me James Bridle’s discussion of metaphors in New Dark Age. This is also a topic that Kin Lane has been exploring lately, reflecting on surplus, ownership, the emotional trap and what goes unseen.