The Beginning

For my Living Through Technology class we are being ask to look at a piece of technology and see how it interacts with a human experience. For my project I have begun to look at the app, “Instagram,” and how it comes into contact with the human experience of self-validation, or ego-validation as I have started to call it.

This app was launched in 2010, and allowed users to upload pictures taken from their smart phones and then apply one of their filters to give it an edgy, professional look.  Instagram is a social networking site, but also allows you to upload your pictures to other social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. It even has a “Geotag” feature that can place you in any part of the world that you uploaded the photo.

 I believe that people have always needed to be validated, however, in this contemporary world it seems validation has gone into overdrive. We feel compelled to post pictures of our dinners on Facebook or tweet about what we just ordered at Starbucks. Perhaps, these things are not valid if we do not put them into the networks. That somehow we matter less as people, if we are not uploading ourselves for others to see. Instagram places these new hyper-validation needs all in the visual realm. 

A few other animals (such as dolphins) can recognize their own reflections, but some would perhaps argue that being able to do so is one of those innate abilities that makes us human.  We find validation in images of ourselves. We have mirrors to check and make sure we are society appropriate, or what image we are trying to portray. We hang pictures of ourselves on walls so we can look at ourselves in ideal circumstances:  the entire family is smiling, dressed up, and looking slightly towards the left. But now this visual validation has gone viral. We post pictures everywhere. We look at other people’s pictures, and judge our own lives accordingly. We find validation in the need for others to see us, and for us to compare with their own set of visuals.

For this contemporary phenomenon, I have been reading into different theorists, particularly Freud’s ideas on ego and Lacan’s mirror recognition stage. I am trying not to go down into the rabbit hole of a feminist spin on the assignment, instead I am choosing to focus my energy on the projection of the self as subject and object. We are validated by images because visually it shows us in totality, we appear whole. We can then invest energy into the projections, both as an other and as an extension of our whole selves.

We have all been posting validating pictures on Facebook, but Instagram now allows us to go one step further, we can literally “filter” our pictures to make them appear that much more ideal. Elizabeth Grosz has this reading into Lacan, “Relations between self and other thus govern the imaginary order. This is the domain in which the self is dominated by images of the other and seeks its identity in a reflected relation with alterity. Imaginary relations are thus two-person relations, where the self sees itself reflected in the other.” Sherry Turkle talks in her book, Alone Together how we are now uploading our ideal selves. So if the imaginary order is made of images in relations to others, we now may have more control and power over those images than ever before in human experience.

Does technology such as Instagram, make us less connected to our idea of a reality or does it give us the tools to reconfigure a new form of reality or imaginary order? 

This blog will be my own tool in helping to map out my research, discussions, further questions, and whatever else might come about through this project. 

With Instagram, I am not an outsider looking in. I have my own photo-filtering account. You can follow me at @shelbelise. I will also be posting pictures here from my Instagram account.