#11: Water quality clams | Selfies and FOMO
art | science | digital culture | design | creativity | words | tech
art | science
The sound of water quality
I’ve just come across a sound artist named Marco Barotti, who has some impressive installation work. In Clams, shown here, speakers play sound based on water quality measurements and the clams open and close in response. Clams in nature filter water, like many marine creatures, and do fill up with plastic waste.
The clams themselves are made from recycled industrial plastic waste, which is particularly topical at the moment with all the discussion of what to do with the huge quantities of plastic waste being produced and what public policy initiatives might help.
Clams is interesting on a technical level as it seems that the motion of the clams themselves is driven entirely by the sound pressure (or any kind of motor is very well hidden!) If you watch the video and skip forward to about 50 seconds in, you notice a second type of motion that isn’t at the start of the video as the speaker cones move far enough that they collide with the clam shells and you hear an extra tapping noise.
digital culture | tech
The identities we want to have
I recently read an excerpt from The Social Photo: On Photography and Social Media by Nathan Jurgenson, from one my favourite publishers, Verso Books.
The excerpt makes the argument that writing off selfies as narcissistic is far too simplistic. The selfie plays a role of explicitly showing the process of identity construction, a process which almost all forms of media have been used for at one point or another. The essay argues that because social photography is about visibility, it is also deeply gendered and stigmatised, especially at the expense of young women.
To me, the presentation of the selfie is also connected to defining an identity bound to an environment or experience. Yes, a selfie might focus on the photographer’s self, but it is usually in the context of a background also visible. And that image then has the performative value of defining an experience that implies a lifestyle.
Once we start implying entire worlds from single images that have been carefully curated, we rapidly jump into FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) territory. How does that person have the time/money/energy/freedom to do those amazing things? Are my priorities all messed up because I didn’t spend the weekend on top of a mountain/in front of the Mona Lisa/eating a gourmet meal at a fancy restaurant/with that famous person?
The phenomenon of social-media-induced FOMO is well studied at this point and is a very real effect that is one of the major causes for why people who use social media excessively also often suffer from mental health issues like depression.
Connected to this, I came across FOMO: The Game by Megan Condis, an assistant professor of communication studies. It was written as part of the 200-word rpg (role-playing game) contest. The game pokes fun at the phenomenon of FOMO to highlight how “The joy that we feel in sharing our lives with our friends is transforming into a need to curate an online persona.”
It’s a simple and fast social game for a group of people with instagram accounts. One player suggests “I hope I didn’t miss…” as a prompt, and the others search instagram for an image to tell a story of what they missed.
It’s always good to hear from readers so let me know what you found interesting here. You can reach me directly at physicsdavid@gmail.com. I encourage you to share this with people who might find the mix of topics I include interesting.