Immediacy Killed the Email Star
“our online relationships are far, far removed from their former status as a separate entity from our real-life relationships”
JG (aka Amoxi, aka Alphonse Godet, aka RM3327) created this video by filming a church LED sign that he washed out, with subtitles spelled incorrectly (but correctly) in 2015. He reads beeper codes over music to complete the piece. Below, Trace William Cowen responds to the art piece, as well as to text culture and online personas and relationships.
+ + +
Immediacy Killed the Email Star (Long Live the Email Star)
The central crush of LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner’s #followmyheart (wherein LaBeouf’s heartbeat was broadcast online during SXSW), an emotional carryover from their previous projects, is one born of a mirrored adoration. I say "mirrored" because, like a reflection—a tentatively accurate reflection—we are at once subject to the betrayal of and the proof of our unique existence. With #followmyheart, we have taken part in an exploration of a version of that adoration reserved for not only innately creative people (artists) but, within a larger and slightly more removed sense, celebrity culture at large. Namely, what is that relationship? What does it mean to be in that relationship? Are we all in this collective relationship (together), and—if so—how do we ultimately reconcile this with our instinctual desire for an explanation favoring a general connectedness of everything?
Peruse many of the written responses to #followmyheart, and you'll see the same thing—an overwhelming sense of connectivity without the burden of conceptualization. There's an immediacy to it that rings loudly true and carries itself across the blogosphere (outdated word alert) to tell a story we actually already knew: our online relationships are far, far removed from their former status as a separate entity from our real-life relationships. In fact, even deeming those in-person encounters as "real-life" seems blatantly derogatory. This essay is real life. #followmyheart is real life. Communication, however you achieve it, is the very crux of the sliding definition of "real life."
And what of that much-feared silence—the unfavorited tweet, the unliked Instagram photo, the read but not replied to Facebook message?
If the exchange drives that aforementioned definition of real life, what is exchanged when an expression remains one-sided, a voice whispering or SHOUTING into the vast expanse of social media space only to remain dangling on a question unanswered or a statement unsupported?
Well, the reality is—someone saw it. Someone responded, either through a scroll-beyond or an actual shake of the head in disagreement. Engagement is crucial; but when engagement fails, we are then in the throes of a very different kind of exchange—human all the same.
Similarly, Alphonse Godet’s Smartromantic (video above) takes to heart the same mirrored conflict, the same mirrored adoration—a portion of which could now be considered social currency of the highest value. In that sense, we are all very rich indeed, as language continues to line the pockets of those with something to say.
The troll, the Lookbook starlet, the Tumblr poet—all hearts beat the same, pump the same blood, fear the same silence.
I'm writing to be heard while battling the insecurity associated with the equally likely outcome of being lost in a sea of others. The unread, the never engaged.
But our elastic hearts always spring back. Keeping time with the pulse of a global discussion.
We are never alone.
+ + +