Excerpts from video above:
"... the project of modernity:the project of instrumentalizing things and making them totally available."
- Byung-Chul Han, "Non-things".
...In the case of selfie, for example, Han writes: "As selfies are primarily messages conveying information, they have a tendency to be over-expressive. Extreme postures are common. There are no mute selfies. Analog portraits, by contrast, are usually quiet. They do not demand one's attention. This quietness is precisely what gives them their expressive Force. Selfies are loud, but poor, in genuine expression."
....When you go back to the older relations we had, relationships we had with photos, photography, there was a quietness, because there was a recognition that it's not just an expression that the selfie wants to do. It's not just the information of a message. There is something more about this moment that we are trying to capture with the with the photograph.
"The rapid advance of informational entropy, that is, of informational chaos, pushes us into a post-factual society. The distinction between true and false is erased. Information now circulates in a hyper-real space, without any refernce to reality. After all, fake news is a kind of information, and one that is possibly even more effective than facts. What counts is short-term effect. Effectiveness replaces truth."
"Unlike information, truth possesses a firmness of being. Truth is characterized by duration and stability. Truth is facticity. It resists any change or manipulation. It thus forms the foundation of human existence: 'Conceptually, we may call truth what we cannot change; metaphorically, it is the ground on which we stand and the sky which stretches above us.'"
"Fromm's criticism of modern society - that it focuses on having rather than being - is no longer completely apt, for we now live in a society of experiencing and communicating that prefers being to having. The old maxim of having - the more I have, the more I am - no longer holds. The new maxim of experiencing is: the more I experience, the more I am."
"We even expect the consumption of things to provide us with experiences. The informational content of things, for instance their brands, is more important than their use value."
"The informational aspect of a commodity becomes ever more im portant than its' material aspect. The aesthetic-cultural content of a commodity is the actual product. The economy of experiences replaces the economy of things."
"Human beings who are not interested in things, in possession, do not submit to the 'thing morality', which is based on work and property. They prefer play to work, experiencing and enjoying to possessing."
"The world consists of things as objects. The word 'object' is derived from the Latin verb obicere, which means 'set against', 'throw against' or 'oppose'. The negativity of resistance is inherent in it. An object is something that turns against me, that opposes and resists me. Digital objects lack the negativity of obicere. I do not experience tham as reistance. the smartphone is smart because it deprives reality of its character as resistant."
"Freud calls a perceptual complex that eludes representation a 'thing'. A thing 'makes an impression' because no attributes can be assigned to it. This impressive singularity, the negativity of the wholly other, is characteristic of a thing. It marks a rupture within the symbolic order, that is, within the studium. Lacan says of the thing: 'What one finds in das Ding is the true secret.' The thing as a blind spot is the opposite of information and transparency."
"Selfies are not meant to be kept. They are not a medium of recollection. For this reason, no one makes prints of them. Like all information, selfies are tied to the actual moment. Repetition would be pointless. Selfies are achknowledged only once. After that, their status of being is like that of an answerphone message to which one has already listened."
"Selfies [...] do not testify to the person. The use of standardized facial expressions, such as 'duckface', precludes any attempt at personal expression. With tongue stretched out and one eye closed, each of us looks the same. We play to the gallery; that is, we stage ourselves in different postures and roles. (Observational aside - The above finally acknowledges the selfies' 2nd order observation profilicity building value.)
"The selfie announces the dissappearance of the kind of human being who is burdened by destiny and history. It expresses a form of life that devotes itself playfully to the moment. Selfies do not mourn."
On Living in a World of Objects
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