To set the scene a little, what sorts of online spaces do you use?
I’d say predominantly Facebook, but I read and sometimes comment on all sorts of sites, especially politically stuff. It is kinda pointless though being sucked in by trolls on news sites or YouTube comments.
Do you engage with trolls often?
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Power turns people ugly and so does anonymity. It brings out the best and the worst in people.
I try not to, or at least try to redirect the conversation to the actual topic. Watch NZ Parliament TV though and it’s depressingly not much better. People so readily resort to name calling when they can’t handle somebody else’s differing world view or “reality”.
That’s an interesting parallel. Perhaps trolls are really all cranky wannabe politicians.
I watched a dramatisation about the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi on YouTube the other day and could not believe the racist comments underneath. Aotearoa/New Zealand has a long way to go.
There are several things at play I think, power turns people ugly and so does anonymity. It brings out the best and the worst in people.
We need to teach tolerance but also criticality and compassion in schools. Most people don’t seem capable of really putting themselves in someone else’s shoes. Unless they are a rich celebrities’ shoes.
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What digital technology does afford is the ability for the individual to educate themselves, but they need to be taught discipline, criticality, problem-solving and collaboration skills by an actual person.
Do you think that digital technology has a role to play here, both in enabling certain behaviours and in educating?
I feel like it could, but I’m not sure if it is currently doing more good than harm. It has a way of bringing people together and also separating them. With so much at your fingertips, it takes a very disciplined person to not get constantly distracted. I feel like ADHD and other related behaviours/disorders have become more prevalent as screen culture and online content has increased.
What digital technology does afford is the ability for the individual to educate themselves, but they need to be taught discipline, criticality, problem-solving and collaboration skills by an actual person.
Do you feel distracted by it?
I am a very distracted person, everything interests me. Especially shiny things!
You mentioned before we started the interview, that you’re about to teach a paper called synthetic realities… I’m not sure if it is relevant… but it sounds like it could be.
Yeah, it is totally relevant. I am looking at treating it as a research project to explore how individuals exist in multiple realities and how each space/reality feeds into each other.
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How does an online reality fit in? Does it allow us to transgress our material realities or does it reinforce them? Does it give us the tools to liberate ourselves from indoctrination or is it just the illusion of liberty?
What kind of multiple realities are you talking about here?
So the various aspects of physical realities, or maybe more specifically, material realities, ie. where you live, what you eat, what you do to survive and then how these feed into and are also affected by your emotional and conceptual realities, belief systems, power systems, knowledge systems. How does an online reality fit in? Does it allow us to transgress our material realities or does it reinforce them? Does it give us the tools to liberate ourselves from indoctrination or is it just the illusion of liberty?
The internet seems to be in a strange place at the moment, caught between being a collective consciousness and a capitalist transactional-based neoliberal power struggle.
I could be wrong…
Thinking about your own experiences, do you feel the internet gives you liberty or is it just an illusion?
I feel knowledge is only liberating if it can be applied or enacted. Otherwise, it is only comforting. And when you’re talking about being aware of the world’s injustices, comforting it definitely is not. In fact I think a lot of people find it debilitating, being bombarded constantly.
I tried to base my conceptual framework for my master’s project on Guy Debord’s “Society of the Spectacle” – I keep coming back to it, because when you cut through all the dense philosophical language, it very accurately describes the state of the world today. And it was written in 1967; that is not to say he was necessarily ahead of his time, but that things have not fundamentally changed.
I think society is treading water. Progress is an illusion.
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The mind is the most advanced technology, but we do not exercise it and feed it properly. It is still on the treadmill being spoon fed, going nowhere.
Sometimes technology and progress seem related… does this make technology an illusion too?
Technology is only a tool. How we use that tool is what is important. It does not always equate to progress.
So to live under a belief that we are evolving to a higher state and that we can fix everything with technology is an illusion. The mind is the most advanced technology, but we do not exercise it and feed it properly. It is still on the treadmill being spoon fed, going nowhere.
I am talking about the mind of society as a whole.
For some reason both The Matrix and one of episodes of the TV show Black Mirror just sprung to mind…
Yes, I have those in my head too.
The Matrix was a letdown. It could have really made people think about their place in the world and who they served and to what end… and instead we got energy sucking robots that we could destroy by blowing them up.
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Online is a parallel to the offline, but it can also be an extension or even feedback into the offline. It is a complex web or ecosystem.
If you have many different offline realities, do you have many different online realities too? Do they converge?
Yes, for instance I have a work reality, a home reality, a social reality and a personal reality. These are not discrete. They inform each other and bleed into each other.
It is the same online. Sometimes I am my professional self online, sometimes my informal self, my social self or my personal self. Sometimes I want to interact with others, sometimes I just want answers, sometimes I just want to escape. Online is a parallel to the offline, but it can also be an extension or even feedback into the offline. It is a complex web or ecosystem.
I like the idea of an ecosystem… it suggests that all parts are important to the whole. Where do you go to escape online?
Video games and porn, LOL, or things that make me laugh. I think I’m too serious these days.
Or sometimes I’m just looking for inspiration, something that the mainstream media doesn’t offer much of these days.
I’m quite into Songify and literal music videos and my wife is always good at finding silly stuff on the internet.
I was looking at your master’s exegesis, in particular the segment about your flag project.
The flag is a powerful symbol of identity. Online dialogue was also a huge part of the recent flag debate in New Zealand, the petition for the ‘Red Peak’ flag design and the surrounding activism.
Yeah, I was trying to understand how and why people engaged with the flag referendum. Particularly people who are not otherwise overtly politically engaged.
What was it about the flag that made people care so much do you think?
I don’t know how much they really cared in the end; turnout was a little bit less than the last general elections and nothing came of it.
There was a lot of talk in the mainstream media and social media, but not much discussion about constitutional matters, Te Tiriti or whether we should scrap the crown and write a proper constitution. There was a Constitutional Advisory Panel set up three years ago and nothing much seems to have come of that either. No discussion of whether we should fly the Māori flag as well at all official events. In the end I think it failed because it was too closely aligned/associated with [Prime Minister] John Key and his agenda and not with an actual robust discussion about where Aotearoa New Zealand is heading.
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It is easy to find people with similar views to you in various social media groups but the problem is it’s hard to have meaningful debate with people of differing opinions, as it inevitably deteriorates to name calling and insults in the relative anonymity of the internet.
Politics and political discussion are obviously very important to you. Do social media have a part to play for you personally in terms of how you engage with others and the democratic process?
Yeah, it is easy to find people with similar views to you in various social media groups but the problem is it’s hard to have meaningful debate with people of differing opinions, as it inevitably deteriorates to name calling and insults in the relative anonymity of the internet.
The democratic process needs to change. I feel that the internet is allowing people to see how things can be done differently. Unfortunately our economic system seems to be at odds with our political, social and environmental values. At least for the most part anyway. The internet only affords so much, it can be effective if used to augment action in the “real” world.
Or catalyse it, in some cases. Take the Internet Party in NZ for example. It activated a lot of young people whom I think were turned off politics. Unfortunately Kim Dotcom was not the right person to be the face of it and Hone Harawira suffered in the end from aligning the Mana party with the Internet party.
Anonymity on the internet is a funny thing, because some of this project’s participants have talked about it as liberating, allowing them to express themselves freely, while others (or sometimes the same people) have talked about trolls… and political discussion sure seems to bring out trolls.
Yeah, it seems to bring out the best and the worst in people. You kind of see people’s values pretty transparently, especially if they don’t have any or just don’t give a shit about meaningful, respectful debate.
You mentioned before about it being hard to have meaningful debate online…do you ever have it? What are you like when you come across someone with differing opinions?
It’s funny, I did have some debates with a “friend” on Facebook leading up to the last NZ elections. He was more of an acquaintance, but we managed to have some civil discussion. It was good, helped me keep my opinions and facts in check. In the end though we fundamentally disagreed on some things and I just can’t respect libertarian types who lack compassion and often the capacity to differentiate systemic and individual problems. All personal responsibility and no social responsibility. I’m probably not as open minded as I think I am LOL.
FYI: this was a person I never see anymore in the flesh due to changes in social scenes, so I’m not sure if the fact we knew each other once affected the engagement. It was pretty interesting when other friends weighed in as well. I can be a bit ranty, but man, I’m pretty moderate compared to others I know…
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I feel like perhaps I’m a bit of a dreamer, so my online self is perhaps simultaneously more idealistic and more pessimistic…
I am really intrigued by the multiple realities you talked about earlier. Authenticity has reoccurred as a theme in my chats with others. If there are multiple realities, is ‘authenticity’ even possible? Are you authentic online?
I think so. I mean as much as one can be. I don’t believe in absolutes, so authenticity is relative. As is my identity, I guess. I feel fairly privileged to live in a society where I can say what I want and not be thrown in jail and tortured. Even with the five eyes watching, I feel it is my duty to speak out and question things that I think are corrupt or immoral. Whether this is authentic in terms of who I am is a grey area.
I feel like perhaps I’m a bit of a dreamer, so my online self is perhaps simultaneously more idealistic and more pessimistic… I think it just heightens things conceptually. But, as someone once said: We are defined by what we do, not what we say. I take that mantra as being about walking the talk. I think it is easy to be all “Let’s start a revolution!” online and then get off and be all, it’s too hard.
They say charity starts at home; I think revolution does too.
Image: Marcel’s light installation work, The House of Representatives 2014
Find out more about his work here: cargocollective.com/renandmars
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