Thoughts, Findings and Research

I have made some progress with my work. Much of my time has been spent finding and gaining access to places in order to photograph the examples I found. It’s proven to be quite challenging, and a lot of the time I received a very straightforward No in response to my inquires. I must say though, I enjoyed and am still enjoying the challenge.

With regards to what I have managed to photograph, some have been successful and others not so successful. This is primarily due to technicalities as I am working within a specific aesthetic end in order to effectively bring across the conceptual. The significance of composition, distance from subject and surroundings have been reinforced over the course of the last few weeks, and I have tried to remain consistent with these elements in order for this project to be successful as a series. Although this strict approach has limited my choices, I feel that those that do match up are a lot stronger. I have posted two examples of what I have managed to photograph thus far. I’m posting the first to simply display as an example of the access I managed to gain. Photographically I hate it.

One of the references I have come across in my research is the book Information Please, in which the author, Mark Poster, discusses an approach to these information machines (as he calls them), similar to the one that I am taking with this project. He has a whole section in which he discusses Freud’s idea of the body as an input-output machine, and adapts this theory to our modern day ‘intercourse with information machines.’ He comments on Freud’s idea that as one grows one is influenced by objects towards ‘which to orient the release of desire (object choice), or [to] incorporate the object into his or her own psycho (identification).’ This takes place at the stage in which the “Ego” emerges, which for Freud was the crucial aspect of a child’s development. This process of identification was limited to the smallest possible circle of others: the immediate parents. The social nexus of Freud’s study ‘thus figured the child in relation to a small circle of adults, organizing the child’s libido in relation to these adults.’ The controlled conditions under which this study had taken place are no longer relevant to today, in which (as Poster correctly highlights), these machines we interact with are serving to reprogramme this development of the ego by acting as objects of desire, or identification. Later in the chapter he comments that ‘these objects of mechanical reproduction alter social relations by substituting machine mediation for face-face relations. They reconfigure space by altering the relation of the public sphere and the private sphere, [thus] altering the configuration of the subject.’

It is not my goal to add any emotional subjectivity to the project as I intend for it to be a study. However, Poster’s use of the (apparently true) short story about a boy and a telephone operator in the introduction of his book is very effective in setting the tone for what follows. I encourage you to read it. It’s not very long at all, and is quite touching. It’s called Information Please, and here is a segement:

The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver and held it to my ear. “Information Please,” I said into the mouthpiece just above my head. A click or two, and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. “Information.” “I hurt my fingerrr-” I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience. “Isn’t your mother home?” came the question. “Nobody’s at home but me,” I blubbered. “Are you bleeding?”. “No”, I replied. “I hit it with the hammer and it hurts”. “Can you open your icebox?” she asked. I said I could. “Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it on your finger. That will stop the hurt. Be careful when you use the ice pick,” she admonished. “And don’t cry. You’ll be alright”.