Digital Self and Artifacts: Reshaping Human Identity

Introduction

Humans have always relied on objects for self-reference and used them as a means of projecting their identity to the exterior world. They create objects to mirror themselves, to preserve their identity and house their desires. The subject-object relation permits a parallel interpretation of physical and mental. At the same time, human beings are reshaped by the artifacts they create. Objects have the power to guide human thought, thus redefining human identity. The emergence of the digital self and the parallel emergence of digital artifacts can be analyzed regarding the mirroring scheme of subject and object. The digital artifact is questioning the reliance of human on physical objects, while it changes human perception and interpretation of the real world. Consequently, the digital artifact in its turn redesigns a new human. To analyze the human's relation with digital artifacts and the ways that human is reshaped by them, Google Art and Culture project is used as a case study.

Use of Digital Artifact as Self-Reference

Human identity is defined by the existence of objects and objects at the same time are designed and shaped according to human existence. The dialectical relation of human and object is related to Maurice Merleau Ponty 's notion of 'chiasmatic bind', as cited by Palasmaa (1), according to which the physical and the mental are unified in one entity and reflected in one another. Therefore, a parallel reading of subject and object can be achieved. Objects can serve in the interpretation of an individual's personal identity or a collective cultural identity of a particular period of time.

Humans project themselves on objects, they create artifacts to self-express and self-reference. The human reliance on artifacts for preserving self identity is visible in the case of Casa Mollino in Turin. Carlo Mollino, in 1960, designed a place to house his hidden desire - he used to secretly photograph women and imagined that they would follow him after death.(2) The design of the space reflected this particular fantasy, as the whole setting looked like a tomb.(2) As Palasmaa claims, 'in addition to housing our fragile bodies and actions, [buildings]also need to house our minds, memories, desires and dreams...Buildings mediate between the world and our consciousness through internalizing the world and externalizing the mind'.(1) Mollino's secret apartment can be understood as an externalization of his mind. Clearly shown in this case, the mind and the artifact are inseparable and mirror each other.

The Human Brain as the Artifact

Human brain and body are characterized by a great degree of plasticity and are under constant transformation due to encounters with animate or inanimate objects in the external world.(1) As a consequence, each one of these encounters can alter the biology of the human body. For instance, Darwin suggested that the shape of the human hand has been evolved due to the use of tools (2) and consequently, human thinking has been adapted to these transformations. Human beings, therefore, become artifacts designed by their own creations.

In 'Toys and Play', Walter Benjamin highlights the importance of inanimate objects in developing human identity. More specifically, he claims that '...before we transcend ourselves in love and enter into the life and often alien rhythm of another human being, we experiment early on with basic rhythms that proclaim themselves in their simplest forms in these sorts of games with inanimate objects. Or, rather these are the rhythms in which we first gain possession of ourselves'.(3) Objects have a life of their own, they impose to the individual their own rhythms (due to their particular properties like material, shape or size) in an act of interaction, by guiding, not only bodily movements, but also thoughts and feelings. In this way, the rhythm of the object is internalized as part of human existence, resulting in a renewed version of self.

Parallel Emergence of Digital Self and Digital Artifact

According to Toyo Ito, the contemporary human being is provided with two bodies, a real body that inhabits the physical world and a digital body that inhabits the digital world.(4) This hybridized body is defined by the notion of 'physical presence' and inhabits a fused reality of digital and real.(4) Through social media each individual can develop multiple identities, a variety of self avatars, with independent thoughts, looks and actions, that possibly are completely different with the individual's real identity.(2) The multiple human identities created the need for multiple spaces. The birth of a digital self has created the need for a digital environment to inhabit. Just as the real body and mind seek for physical objects to self express, the digital self also needs digital artifacts to relate to. The subject - object mirroring relation explains the parallel emergence of digital self and digital artifact.

According to Picon (4), the new generation has already developed specific physical and mental characteristics that demand a digital oriented space to interact with. The expectations of a generation from an image or a representation are expressed by Baxandall with the notion of 'period eye', which closely relates taste to our experience of visual culture.(5) Our familiarity with high contrast images, brightness and details demands interaction with objects with these qualities.(5) In this sense, the digital artifact has been invented to satisfy the needs of the digitalized self. The need of contemporary society for digitalization of artifacts is best reflected in Google Art and Culture project. Google Art and Culture mirrors the cultural identity of contemporary society and, at the same time, it contributes in its evolution. (6)

Digital Artifact and User Interaction

The emergence of digital artifact has altered human perception, by offering immersive experiences, created new kind of gestures, through interaction with the medium (screen, mouse, keyboard, etc.) and eventually transformed the interpretation of the physical world.

In Google Art and Culture project the individual develops a participatory kind of engagement with the artwork compared to the physical encounter. The platform enables the user to interact with the artwork, by zooming even into the detail of the brushwork, attend virtual tours of museums and compare artworks of multiple institutions or time periods. Moreover, it provides the opportunity to participate in interactive experiments, where the digital artifact is directly related to the users actions.(6) This kind of experience can be described as 'ergodic', a term used in digital fiction to highlight the more active role of the individual in the reading experience, compared to a print book. (7) The digital artifact, just as digital fiction, offers multiple narratives for a particular artwork, either because the observer can choose different paths to navigate in the platform, in order to analyze the work, or because the artwork offers different perspectives of itself (for example, the change of size changes the focus of interest).(7)

Google Art and Culture offers a psychological type of immersion to digital reality, which means that the user is 'submerged in the experience of the environment'.(6) The interaction of the individual with the digital artifact has the power to remove from the individual the sense of belonging in the physical world. The priority world becomes the digital one, since it satisfies the low tolerance for boredom of the contemporary human, by offering multiplicity of information, a variety of participation options and alternative scenarios of interaction. (7)

The interaction of the individual with the digital artifact involves both corporeal and cognitive engagement,(7) through the use of the particular medium (screen, keyboard, mouse) to navigate in the digital platform. Picon suggests (4) that 'our everyday gestures and movements are indebted to our machines and their specific requirements'. For instance, by using the mouse as navigation tool, or the keyboard to build a specific story our bodily gestures are reshaped, our reflexes are developed (4) and simultaneously, human thinking is adjusted to these particular transformations. In this case, the cooperation of medium and digital artifact redesigns human body and mind.

Renewed View of the Physical Self

The emergence of digital artifact permits the experience of the digital prior to the encounter with the physical. The engagement with an artifact takes place in most of the cases firstly in the digital world through posts in the social media, online platforms or even virtual tours. This can result in disappointment when the encounter with the physical artifact takes place. In order to highlight the superior experience of the representation over the real artifact, Susan Sontag, as cited by Beil (5), claims that 'photography is the reality, the real object is often experienced as a letdown'. Our degree of pleasure derived from vision is directly related to the period eye. Digital artifacts can be more attractive, as the gigapixel resolution, the high contrast and the colours satisfy the perceptual demands of the 21st century human eye.(5)

However, the digital experience is not designed to replace the experience of the physical artifact. Through parallel interpretation of digital and real, a renewed perception of the original artifact can occur. As James Gardner suggests (5) 'reality itself, the real thing, may just be an imperfect medium for looking at art'. For example, Google Art and Culture provides a different perspective in analyzing a work of art. The gigapixel image with the great degree of detail reveals intimate features of the original artwork that are not visible during the physical experience, due to the restricted affordance of the human eye compared to the camera.(6) These details can guide the observer's interest towards specific features of the artwork during the physical encounter and inform the existing knowledge about the authentic work.

Visual Transformation of Touch

The digital artifact, as analyzed through Google Art and Culture project, has altered human senses and more specifically, the notion of touch. The concept of touch, as described by Nancy (8), does not necessarily require physical contact between objects: 'To touch something is to make contact with it even while remaining separate from it because the entities that touch do not fuse together...It requires a certain space between beings, but also an interface where they meet'. Regarding digital artifacts, the interface between the two touching entities - the human and the digital artifact - could be the medium used for interaction - the screen of the computer or the cell phone. In the digital environment touch becomes visual and this transformation can be used to explain the intimate relation that an individual develops with the digital artifact.

The pleasure that an individual receives from digital artifacts can be explained due to the connection of visual and tactile parts of the brain. (9) Recent findings in neuroscience, regarding empathy, revealed the existence of mirror neurons in the human brain, that tent to simulate a particular act that the human perceives.(9) This mirroring act, by mentally imitating a specific movement, evokes pleasure and joy to the observer and it is related to the degree of knowing the displayed skill. (1) Similarly, Google Art and Culture representations, with their focus on detail, reveal the act of painting or sculpting of the artist and therefore this act is simulated in the human brain of the observer. The view of the creation process of the artwork activates at the same time the tactile parts of the brain, resulting in the essence of pleasure while this process is mentally simulated. Therefore, the feeling of touch is achieved because of the visual engagement with the digital artifact. A greater degree of engagement of the viewer and the artifact can be achieved in the digital environment, as physical encounter does not permit this kind of perceptual relation.

References

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