Homo Cypiens. Herlander Elias
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4. The Cinematic Mosaic
Everywhere, reality is always represented in screens, in squares, windows and cut-outs of reality. Whether it's on computers, whether on TV or on our mobile media, we are always watching a version of reality that is micro-presented, an almost playing version of a reality that really exists in. Actually, there are people and events. The cinematic screens we use transform “real reality” into a simulation of windows. Everything looks like a computer game, but in reality people have stories and traditions, opinions and knowledge. Anyway none of this matters now, except to social networks; for these we are living in one of the squares that appear on the screen ― we are part of the social “whole”, we are a part of the digital social fabric. We have transformed the digital media into windows so that individuals share their personal imaginaries, a so exteriorized subjectivity that it leads to the establishment of a public state of “everybody knows, everybody sees, everybody does”, this being considered the norm. But the great question is that the “realities” we consult in social media are already corrupted by the cinematic logic of perspective, framing, angle, color correction, suffering these of amateur handling as it has become obvious over the last few years. So, the massive dynamics of all this leads us to participate in the great film of our life because we are always online, we are audiences who share and consult, after all we are actors and now our performance counts. There is a continuous performance obviously recognizable in a “gamification” of the reality. And outside of this performance no one seems to be out. We are researchers, players and actors. Nobody knows what to want, but everyone wants to appear in the websites which social media turned into. Who could imagine these websites and apps would reach such a magnitude they have today?!
When we see the posts on Instagram it looks like we are watching a movie stars’ diary pretending that everyone has a perfect life. Nobody shares the bad side of life. This hyper-reality is colored pink, and what's more weird is that no one is prepared for the massive dynamics of social media. We see too many people sharing everything, but we are not interested in the majority of the things published in these social media. However, in any case, people publish and consult. These networks are made from people to people and understood by machines and algorithms, besides this one notices that there is a certain tyranny of the model. In social network all information always follows a paradigm, a story-base: there is an article of journalism, a scientific study, always supporting what goes on and that gives rise to publication, including funny posts. The referent is always the reality outside the social medium. In practice, we are getting formatted for the “age of misinformation”. The people themselves misinform one another, so that the random reality seems suspicious. The scale of misinformation is big because as reality follows the photographic and cinematic spectrum, which are realistic, though manipulative, all else is doubtful. From here we can draw an illation ― you are lying having reality as a basis. Fantasy, rumor, lies, mythomania and other elements of the genre grow in tandem with the massive dynamics of the network, because the network is made up of everything ― the objective and the subjective.
The influence that we have of cinema is still very big, after all this is the means of election of the twentieth century according to Manovich (2001), and since we are in the 21st century it is also notorious that we are highly influenced, no longer by the computer model, but by the network model. It is the network that rules as a model in everything: trends, viral codes, new preferences, futurism, and so on. We see reality by the style of the camera or the vídeo camera. For this reason, the idea of a “system-image” prevails due to the immeasurable increase of images. The images all together make up a system-image, and each image connects to more “flow-images”. We are watching the end of the “still” image. All the images, even the photographic ones can have movement, can be cinematic like the live photos of the Apple iPhone. What is happening is that in an image-addicted society flow images function as connecting poles, attraction poles and points of attachment between people. The time when people communicated more by telegram, letter, postal or email is gone. The truth is that now we communicate more through social media and this stems from the fact that we are more prone to visual communication. Or audiovisual. However, as volatility sets in serenity it will unleash its purpose.
5. The Tragedy of Serenity
Our time is marked by the massive dynamics of images about ourselves and the other individuals we know that accumulate. Many of these images are images of good things, but it remains, however, something strange, as we foresee the existence of a certain tragedy of serenity. The seizure has become the norm for the generation of novelties. As tensions have a political and commercial impact, everything that is supposed to have an impact is tense and worthy of controversy. Images of “cute” things or “gross” things circulate in the network, but, nevertheless, they are controversial. The fact that everything helps the accumulation of massive dynamics does not help one to have discernment to understand the problem and this is because reality is always portrayed aggressively (the accident, the corrupt, the murderer) or in a colorful way (the star, the artist, the birth, the invention, the discovery). There seems to be no intermediate reality. There are only extremes. The reason why this is so is that we want to highlight the good side and only then the very bad side, and advertising appears as the savior of everyday life deceiving us with beautiful and seductive universes, designed to be within the reach of the average consumer, whatever it means...
We may also say that there is a tragedy of serenity insofar as serenity seems to have given way to the tragic, and as everything nowadays has to be news in social media the tragic or black side of life is more attractive and conector than the serene side. In other words, the tragic or the more dramatic side sells more resulting in a product of misinformation, perverse manipulation of data and images barely digested by most audiences, in other words bloodthirsty and selfless pity audiences. We also highlight another kind of news, the aggressive news. These novelties are filled with impressive pseudo-concepts, thought and designed to impact. It is a new “normal” this to do everything to provoke strong emotions at all costs, and to design everything to be socially mediated. We accept that massive dynamic reality is something strenuous to experience. But it is also true that there is a lack of realistic simplicity. Our world of massive dynamics is too complex and tiring. We miss when life was simpler. In the environment in which we move, complexity has become the sister of innovation. Although traces of simplicity can still be found in some daily acts of our lives, they are not the ones that propagate more. Practically, there is no longer room for individuality, for the singular, because everything is continuous space. Social media forces a fluidity between individuality, sharing and community. As pointed out above, we are always connected, there is no off-field of the actual cinematic. What exists is shareable and contributes to massive dynamics. One can not delete its contribute to massive dynamics. There is an inevitability. Of course we will continue to contribute and participate in the massive dynamics, because we are homo cypiens.
In this order of thought, we notice that there is a lack of substance or content in almost anything nowadays, from the products we consume to the way people present themselves formally. Reality is rushed and lacks a positive opacity; there is a false transparency in which all that is shared by the fact that it has no depth, or, to be, be very little. Everything is hollow, futile, fast and fleeting. The only thing people are worried about is the removal of obstacles ― nothing matters more than the credit images and the credit given to the images. The tragedy of serenity happens because in everyone’s eagerness wishing to impress everyone what remains is very volatile and fragile. As there are many options no one wants the first result found because something will supposedly better appear, and consequently we expect strategically as it is useless to be impulsive and happy with what has appeared first. However, as this society is also impulsive, with its codes and props, there is a will to succeed and a need to appear imposing an ideally strong and charismatic image, even if it is only a superficial and / or aggressive one. The serene state of mind is rare. The tragic scores better from the moment a famous social event or character is hit tragically. There is always news, sometimes when things go well, sometimes when things go wrong. Media rules in the iconic era!
6. Iconics
In an age where the image is worth everything, increasingly we communicate without text abbreviating everything. We use less words,