What is “Post-digital”?

Post-Digital cannot be defined by one meaning, there is no definite answer to the question. This text goes through many different variations of the term post-digital, with one even relating the term digital to meaning, any form of numerical measurement, claiming that a guitar is digital as its frets are spaced at a precise point, while a violin goes off feel alone. Although, that last example was a bit on the crazy side of things, I believe that we are not living in a post-digital age at all, as the term post-digital does not make sense in our current context.

What I believe is Post-Digital

Personally, I believe that we will always be in a digital age, just over time it has become less apparent as digital and technological aspects of our lives have become more integrated into our surroundings, and therefore feel that the term “Digital Age” is more appropriate. Our cars have computers, our refrigerators have screens, even a vacuum cleaner can navigate every inch of our floor and find its way back to the charger. And this is why I believe that digital technology is not a movement, or a revolution, but instead a key aspect in the development of humanity. Unlike post communism and post punk, digital technology stuck around and not only that changed the world we live in, in almost every way, therefore, I find it is more related to something along the lines of the bronze age and stone age. We still use stones like flint to start fires, just now its located in a lighter. We still use Bronze, just now its in the form of specialized spark free tools and bearings; And like these past ages, we will continue to use this technology, until another technology influences society in such a way., creating yet another age.

Summery

Overall, I found this reading to be quite thought provoking, as it actually allowed for the reader to discover their own definition of what they believe is “Post-Digital” rather than sticking with one. In the end, (as seen above), it allowed me to discover my depiction of post-digital, which turned out to be not digital at all.

Why This Text Was Confusing

Right off the bat, I’m just going to admit, this reading kind of flew over my head. It was hard to understand and follow, since the pages were crooked and the reading was long, with repetitive use of metalanguage and a need for contextual knowledge that I was unfamiliar with. Due to this, I will more or less be elaborating one of the questions from the tutorial.

What does Manovich mean when he suggests that cinema, the printed word and HCI could sit within the same conceptual plane

“Cinema, the printed word, the human-computer interface: Each of these traditions has developed its own unique way of organizing information, presenting it to the user, correlating space and time, and structuring human experience in the process of accessing information.”   

Manovich suggest that a cultural understanding is required in not only the understanding of Cinema and printed word, but also in the use of a HCI, as people who have not grown up with the influence of technology would not understand the icons of any computer. This could be explained for say, in the floppy disk icon used on most computers and digital devices, would not be understood by a human who has grown up in technologically behind country. Many other examples may include the symbolic icon of a power button, using both the “1” and “0” of binary to show this button both turns “on” and “off” this device.

https://www.freepik.com/free-icon/power-button-off_744481.htm

Although I also argue against this concept, where I feel that some technology could be understood, such as the concept of arrow keys as the act of pointing is a fairly universal concept amongst humans, so the use of this primitive symbolism may be conveyed through a contextual barrier.

Psychology of Brand Identity

The “Ways of Seeing” the psychological aspects of brand identity, with one of the more prominent terminologies being “spectator-buyer” and “spectator-owner”. These are the terms used to discuss the imagery of the product, beyond the capabilities of the product.

Spectator-Buyer

The spectator-buyer is a term used to describe how a potential customer before they buy a product of desire. They are seen to envy their future self who has that product, and gain excitement from the thought of others jealousy towards them. This gives the impression, that by having this object, the customer will be seen as greater then they were before. This is seen in branding such as Jeep’s famous “Don’t Hold Back” slogan. This feeds the spectator-buyer ideas looking more adventurous if they drive this off-road vehicle, along with a feeling of indestructibility.

Spectator-Owner

The spectator owner is the role of the person trying to sell the product to the buyer. This terminology works better in the case of selling things that change the appearance of the customer. The most common example of this would be jewellery shop staff complementing on how somebody looks with their product on. This use of encouragement is the fake envy that they desire from those around them. Obviously, the owner is not truly envious of the jewellery, otherwise they would not be selling it in the first place. This can be in the form of faltering ones prestige of appearance and trying to seem separated from those around them.

Photography as Proof

“Camera Lucida” discusses the true value of a photograph in a more philosophical kind of way. A large focus of the reading based on the use of the photograph as “Look”, “See”, “There it Is”, conveying that photographs serve the purpose of proving something exists. With out a photograph, how can you prove something happened or even existed.

Photography is Unique

The reading also discusses the belief that a photograph can never be reproduced in the exact same circumstances. Although the above statement seems deep and philosophical, it only works within reason, such as. If you take a picture of a car in a well lit studio, that picture could be reproduced on a level of accuracy undetectable by the human eye, and each picture can also be duplicated through digital media. This statement does work however for natural imagery, such as taking a picture of an endangered animal in its natural habitat, or a picture thunderstorm over the ocean, as nature in its own way, is to chaotic to reproduce.

The Value of a Photograph

One intriguing point identified was the value of a physical photograph in its fragility. Why do photographs in physical form cause more emotion then one of many displayed on a screen? Is it due to the fact that it is a physical object that never changes, or the fact that it will eventually deteriorate over time? Questions like this get me deep in thought, as I have thousands of photographs on my phone, but the photographs that mean the most, are the physical strips from photo-booth’s with my friends and I, hanging on my wall. Even though the digital equivalent of these images are on my phone, I still can’t help but feel more emotions from the physical object.

Within this weeks tutorial, we discussed Pecha Kucha’s and the contents of the reading. The reading (typographica) I now understand was mainly about design and its technological developments, and how this affected major world events. The majority of the reading focused on visual communication design like that of newspapers and advertising posters. One interesting point that brought up, was the fact that Abraham Lincoln was perceived as more trustworthy and credible in the eyes of the public due to a photograph of him being widespread. Before this most people would not be able to see who they were voting for.

After the discussion, we made a timeline and had to guess in what order each communication invention was created.

Although my group only got 2 wrong, this was quite interesting (eg: how old sans serif is).

After the tutorial, I have followed up with studying Pecha Kucha’s and found some interesting examples. My favourite Pecha Kucha was this discussion about a fun social media page that became famous from an action figure and an idea:  https://www.pechakucha.org/presentations/make-it-so