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New Age Narcissism / Self-Portrait
(2009)
In an age of hyper celebrity, we find ourselves constantly looking at others, assessing their lives and comparing them to our own – calculating and ranking social status through factors such as popularity, wealth, intelligence, sex appeal, etc. Staring into this mirror has made us aware of the way in which we too, are looked at for same reasons.
The forefront of this gaze has become our online life, where there is often an abundance of discoverable personal information – search friendly, catalogued and documented through any form of media put into the web. Often, we realise the implications of our online projections and volunteer data ourselves, in efforts to have some control over how we are viewed – a direct attempt to influence what others think about us. These new technologies (specifically social networking platforms) allow us to collect an audience – "friends", "followers" and "subscribers" – guaranteeing an audience, in turn feeding a vicious cycle of our desire to be looked at, to look at others and compete against others for social status in these new ranking systems.
With individuals using multiple platforms and the existence of information spread through a variety of sources, search interfaces aim to present an accurate index of all personal references, in the entirety of the web. In most countries, an everyday tool with a consistent online presence has become the quintessential of all ranking systems, the Google search.
We look at people – friends, family, peers, bosses, potential lovers, and inevitably, ourselves.
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02 September 2009
