Response 2 MarcD

Wearcam and Shootingback are inventions that retrace snippets of one’s daily physical life.   They may have been considered outlandish and ultra modern but are quickly becoming the new norm of humans’ desire or need to video the events of their lives.  These are technologies that go further than digital cameras, Go Pro’s, and dashcams in that they are hands-free, some are wearable, and can perform all three functions of recording, processing, and transmitting.  Instead of writing in a journal or logging one’s events in writing, these inventions provide for daily self-surveillance of activities or events, kind of a broader technology to Ashley D’s app that logs purchases for a day, honing in on one specific aspect of daily life.  The kinds of self created by these technologies can be self-reflective at the least and narcissistic at the most, being that a lot of video footage is used to log one’s day as well as the time it takes to watch them (unless a time-lapse program is used) and the focus seems to be on one’s self.  Another possible self could be the defensive self.  The saying ‘the best defense is a good offense” applies to war and daily life and with the proliferation of video cameras one must be equally armed if falsely accused of something like running a red light or theft or something.

Phage is a computer program that retraces snippet’s of one’s daily digital life.  By scanning through one’s personal hard drive Phage displays in a mystifying, floating, 3D image pieces of websites visited, words used in emails, pictures downloaded, etc.  Phage seems similar to one sleeping at night, when pieces of one’s day and memories could become convoluted into one dream.  Similar, but kind of opposite to Annie H.’s idea of logging random, creative ideas as they come up on to a website, Phage logs some sources of inspiration people get by looking at old photos or reading the internet or emails.  Both are put in a digital way to log random pieces of information like photo’s, words, and ideas.  Phage creates a self that emphasizes the mind/tech connection that most of us have today.

Both Mann’s and Flanagan’s technologies reflect most members of modern day society in terms of how technology can be logged and surveyed throughout a typical day and how much our daily lives are captured in images and video’s.  With the exception of people living in the most remote parts of the world,  everyone, even the very poor could have access as public computers and personal cell phones have increased storage and functions.