Response 2 – StellaL

In the phage video a mirror of what it means to be human especially in this day and age is created by pulling things found on one’s computer and displaying them. The self presented with the new technology of the application that pulls things from your hard drive, is that which your computer sees of you. It creates a strange mirror because it’s from a technological standpoint and gives computers human-like attributes in that you interact with it and it stores memories of your activities with it. I think race, gender, class, etc. do have influence on this self as everyone with be interested in different things on an individual level, class level, gender level, and race level. The poor would not have access to this new self as they likely are not going to be able to have access to a personal computer.

The Jennicam project provides an interesting mirror on what it means to be human because people are allowed to watch a normal person live their everyday life quite like reality television minus the scripting. The self reflected is your average human being going about life. People, I think, are fascinated by this because we are curious and nosey by nature and are interested in what’s going on with another’s life. It’s surely the closest thing to a literal autobiography that could be provided on the internet. The new technology in this instance would be a webcam and the internet. Through this the real self cna be displayed especially in the case of Jennicam. It’s unfiltered. I think demographics surely influence this self because they affect who we are as people from our appearance to our personality. Again, I think that generally speaking, the poor would likely not have access to these new selves as they are not likely going to have access to a personal computer or webcam.

With the proliferation of these new selves, a technologically based society is developed in a deeper sense as there is sort of a relationship developed between computer and cyberspace. In the case of phage, our computer while it may not be able to process this information to come to conclusions about a user (yet, except in the cases of the internet) develops an idea of a person regarding what is stored. In the case of Jennicam, the internet and use of a webcam allows for the interaction of humans with the outside world without needing to go outside. This also opens the world to one way relationships with the people of the internet where you know things about them, but they don’t know anything about you. I think also this new form of the self has allowed for the decline of people’s abilities to connect in real life.