Faciality and the Interface
Alex Reid,
Digital Digs,
Aug 08, 2008
The main message: "Wesch is speaking to the paralyzing effect of the webcam... Gardner also speaks about this in rhetorical terms--the development of voice in the writer and the challenges of audience. That is, the challenge of speaking to an absent, indeterminate audience is not new." Before we begin draping this whole phenomenon with too many layers of theory, let me demur. I have lived most of my life in some sort of public eye - not Paris Hilton famous, but always active in media or politics or activism, and therefore always subject to some 'audience'. And from my perspective, the 'challenge of the audience' is a negative challenge: it doesn't exist, except when we attempt to solve it. The minute you begin, if you will, performing, you create the challenge. The trick is to not begin performing, to speak as yourself, as though there is no audience. And - I think - as more and more people realize this, through their own participation in online media - the more artificial, banal and flimsy 'performances' on or offline will begin to seem.
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