Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Algirdas Nakas
Professor Palacio
27 September 2009
As an artist and an art educator it has always been my belief that all
our forms of self -expression; writing, imagery, speech, dance, dress
etc., have great value. The freedom to express ourselves openly and
honestly not only benefits society, but is crucial to our own health,
spiritual and physical. This is the backdrop for my opinion that
Facebook is the most important form of communication since the birth
of McLuhans global village made possible by television. Facebook not
only lets us see the world, but have a real time dialogue with it’s
inhabitants that could affect action and human events. These
dialogues could be aesthetic, mundane, crisis oriented or political in
nature. But importantly they are still largely uncensored and
immediate and they are usually expressed from a point of view that is
somehow genuine. This honest expression of ideas can spontaneously
ignite not only more Facebook comment, but also political and social
change. This is nothing short of revolutionary. It is the exponential
expansion of the printing press to the television to the internet
encased in a palatable, easy to use and very powerful tool that lets the
global village speak to each other. This democratization of personal
expression is liberating. We all now have the opportunity to quickly
send our vibrations around the world. Not just the photographer
sending pictures to a newspaper, not just an anchorman reporting
news on a television network, but any of us can now publish our ideas
instantly for anyone to see. And if an idea has resonance, the idea can
spread virally into the world’s collective consciousness with a speed
never before imagined (I am including MySpace and YouTube , etc. in
this equation).
So exactly what sorts of personal, powerful, ideast are being sent via
the network? What is this earth shattering, personal expression that
defines the importance of Facebook? The beauty of Facebook is that it
elevates the small event, the little thought, the smaller audience and
the individual as well. Facebook is the medium that is being mostly
used for expression of the niche idea, the cult image, the singular
fetish. Ironically, it is these smaller expressions that give Facebook it’s
humanity, it’s real beauty. The simple photo of a group of friends on
vacation or at a party, it is this aspect of Facebook that says our
friends are important. It is the birthdays, the moments of joy or fatigue,
the melancholy or the laughs that we share with those we connect with
that gives us satisfaction or relief. This facet of Facebook creates a
Thorton Wilder’s “Our Town” sort of character to our networks, where
the passing of the seasons, the sunrise, the personal relationships of
4
neighbors, are expressed within our own community as the things that
really have meaning (Wilder). Just as the dead came back to speak in
Wilder’s play, we will be digital ghosts dwelling forever in this
Facebook ether, forever leaving a record of someone’s 16th happy
birthday wall messages.
I have many “friends” on Facebook, and the majority of these are the
high school or college students that I have taught or currently teach.
The remainder is family, current adult friends and acquaintances or
friends from earlier years of my life that have reconnected. The group
that most interests me are the students. This is a group that was born
into this digital age and it is completely second nature to them. They
take the Facebook network totally for granted. I am stunned by the
thought that I can put up a picture of what I am doing at the moment
and it can be instantly seen by my network, while these young people
find this fact as mundane and ordinary. They see this as how they live,
they see electronic computer networking as nothing more significant
than casual chat in a school hallway. And that is pretty much how they
use Facebook. With casual conversation and imagery of what they are
doing, just did, or are planning. Importantly however is the fact that
their conversations are often vividly illustrated with candid and posed
photography as well as live video, video stills or recorded video. This
personal publishing by adolescents is unique in the history of man and
to adults gives great insight into their developing consciousness and
states of mind. As someone who has recorded many of their school
events, my own photography has been a part of what dwells on the
pages of my student friends. My photographic work has been a portion
of the evidence that reveals glimpses of their personalities, growing,
learning young people, that I care for greatly. As such I am concerned
that students of this age are less aware of the possible hazards of
freely releasing access to their lives to the world than older
generations (Govani/Pashley).
Though somewhat
simplistic,
think about how many
spontaneous works of art
you
may have
published for news
feed to a network
as a college
freshman. Myself,
in the 70’s, zero.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/harrisontelyan/
References:
Thorton Wilder. Our Town: A play in three Acts. 1st ed. NY: Coward-
McCann,
1938. Print.