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November 4, 2007
Fall Back... In Plain View of Everyone
Welcome to the end of Daylight Savings Time! That event is one of the happiest festivals of the year chez Digital Digressions. "Falling Back" means never having to say you're sorry for sleeping until 7 or 8am, because it's now 6 or 7am, and you suddenly seem like a good, upstanding member of the (early-rising) community.
Ah, the joys of time travel!
Of course, life isn't all champagne brunches in bed here at the hacienda. No, regardless of what temporal witchery we may effect with our digital chronometers, we have an older, primordial force to reckon with.
The cats.
Or, as we like to call them, our fuzzy alarm clocks. See below, for an in-depth and unflinching look at life with felines. I must warn you... you may be shocked by what you see. You may be disturbed. (We sure the hell are, most mornings.)
I don't know what perverse demon-god brought the so-called "Protestant Work Ethic," the phenomenon of the "morning person," and cats desiring ever-earlier sunrise breakfast specials in to existence, and then conflated them into a huge, looming monolith of cultural (and individual) expectation that we should all get the frack up before the sun rises, but that demon-god had dang well better have received a MASSIVE promotion and raise for that one.
Anyway, I was reading the Sunday New York Times ("so much paper, so little news" -this morning's review by The Spouse) and I came across the article on the front page above-the-fold of the Week in Review section, "See Me: Yours for the Peeping." And this was the image that took up almost all of the above-the-fold page:
The article is all about how new buildings are being designed to heighten, not minimize, your exposure to the rest of the world. That is, whereas in earlier, simpler (pre-digital, but we'll get to that in a minute) days, buildings were designed so that you could create a private space for yourself and/or your family. (For instance, memorably, in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, both a resort community and a public housing project designed by the Frank Lloyd Wright-esque Howard Roark were built so that each of the units in the resort and tower had no view of the neighboring units, providing the illusion that each unit was it's own space, rather than simply one of many in the development.)
However, in the age of Facebook and web cams, Penelope Green tells us that our architecture is now facilitating our exhibitionism like never before. Architects like Jeremy Fletcher and Alejandra Lillo strive to create "glass-walled condominium towers" that "allow [...] residents to see, and be seen by, passers-by on the street below." But not only can you now flash your neighbors, you can also flash your cohabitants! Green tells us of "peekaboo features within each apartment, like a window between the kitchen and the bedroom, and a bathroom that's a glass cube, allowing residents to expose themselves to their roommates and family members, too."
Mmmmm... sounds tantalizing, doesn't it? I can't wait to use my new glass-cube bathroom! I bet you can't wait for me to use my new glass-cube bathroom, either!
But all of this architectural philosophizing is predicated upon our on-line behavior, which is, admittedly, increasingly exhibitionistic. Why do we text message each other at all hours of the day and night? Why is there no shame in having loud, often personal conversations on mobile phones in public spaces? (The NY Times has an article about the popularity -- and illegality, damnit -- of personal phone jamming devices.) Why should I care that the NaBloPoMo site tells me that I have "No friends on this social network yet"? Do I care? And why do we blog our lives, and keep our MySpace and Facebook pages up-to-the-second?
Which reminds me of a conversation I had with Pat Mardeusz, research librarian extraordinaire at UVM's main library, about exhibitionism on campus. She was leaving campus one evening and she saw a scantily-clad young lady walking down the sidewalk. The car in front of her was filled with scruffily-dressed young men, whose heads all turned in eerie synch to watch her walk by. Pat told me about how angry and protective she felt in that situation. I understood where she was coming from, but I immediately thought about the presumption of public performance that seems to be an inextricable part of youth culture today. They seem to expect that everything they say and do will be out there for others to read/watch/listen to/whatever. And, as the NaBloPoMo "you have no friends" notice points out, the more people who watch you, the more popular and socially powerful you are.
But is it the same in the "real," i.e., non-digital world? Wearing trampy provocative clothing undeniably makes one more noticeable and more noticed, but does the social power of that noticing also translate?
One final thought on this. I was talking about female objectification with the grad seminar a few classes ago (we were discussing an article on visual literacy, visual rhetoric, and the role of subjectivity in visual interpretation). We ended up talking about the respective connotations of images of fully or mostly naked men and women in the media.
In your mind, which more often conveys strength, power, or security, and which conveys weakness, vulnerability, and defenselessness -- undressed men or women?
Which brings me back to the glass bathroom article in the Times. What are we to make of the shirtless guy in this picture? (The Spouse told me he thinks the guy is urinating. I'm not convinced of that, but it's certainly apropos of the article. And, for the record, if that's the case... ewwwwwwww.)
And what would you make of the picture of the building if it were a topless woman facing away from the camera? Does that change the stakes in this discussion of moving our exhibition off-line? Why?
Posted by reparent at November 4, 2007 3:06 PM
Comments
Great post! I love the idea of architecture following online culture, but I think the connection is a bit tenuous. I mean, gated communities have been around a lot longer than password-protected online forums. Just because there's a metaphorical similarity doesn't imply causation (the architect's and designer's stated intentions notwithstanding). And there are other social phenomena that are accentuated in the digital realm more fully than exhibitionism and voyeurism -- homophily, for one. Perhaps we'll start to see more physical living spaces that are filtered by political outlook or fetish, like their online counterparts.
I like the facebook video too. It reminded me a bit of the short film The Parlour.
Posted by: bill simmon at November 5, 2007 2:35 PM