Menu
UNINTELLIGIBLE MURMURS
  • About this blog – legal stuff
UNINTELLIGIBLE MURMURS

Categories

Archives

The Unseen Environment

Posted on June 9, 2019September 16, 2019

“But taking it all at the most favorable estimate, the time each day is small when any of us is directly exposed to information from our unseen environment.”
Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion, 1922

I like the term “unseen environment” Walter Lippmann coined is his landmark 1922 book on how public opinion comes to be. He uses it to describe the information that seems important to us yet comes from beyond our own horizon through media – second hand. For him, this was solely through newspapers and magazines. Back then, radio just made its first few steps, but it took additional time for the new medium to flourish.

I am having a slight beef with his views, I would normally argue, that he looks at this too narrowly. Even at his time, far more information came to people through intermediaries. The wartime stories, told by uncle Joe, the gossip heard at the butchers, all stuff that was far from being real experience for the audience. That has always been the case. And always has our real horizon been quite narrow. But I am getting what he is going for.

It is interesting to see, that these ground-breaking books, that seemed revolutionary and oracle-like, were just not able to predict the scope things really took at the beginning of the 21st century. Take Walter Benjamin. He was talking about the mechanical reproduction of images. He might not have been able to fathom the fact, that today most images are taken by machines, for machines. Entirely removed from the human sphere and not decipherable without much effort.

So much of my knowledge today comes to me from the unseen environment. The scope is quite amazing. Most of the stuff I believe to grasp are thing I have actually never experienced myself. I think virtual reality might be a mere step away. Maybe in parts, I should already classify my life virtual. The unseen environment has taken over. And the same, I believe, is true for the most people I encounter. I don’t think that this is much of an issue. I like the idea of the brain in a jar, being fed all sorts of stimuli. Not that I am going to donate my brain, while still being up and kicking.

Recent Posts

  • The Unseen Environment
  • The Issue with Feedback – Learning from Design
  • That I find fascinating
  • Graveyard of Rejected Papers
  • Graveyard of Rejected Papers
  • Graveyard of Rejected Papers
  • Graveyard of Rejected Papers
  • Graveyard of Rejected Papers
  • Graveyard of Rejected Papers
  • Shut up and take my paper!
  • The Tom-Sawyer-Method in an Academic Setting
  • Peak frustration and the strange metrics of artistic success
  • Overly Specific
  • Maximum Voting Age
  • Manipulation

Recent Comments

  • Rick P. Star on My talk at the Chaos Communication Congress 32C3

Archives

  • June 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016

Categories

  • Agile Design (1)
  • Deep Fakes (1)
  • Graveyard of Rejected Papers (6)
  • Intelligence (3)
  • Pornography (2)
  • Propaganda (16)
  • Random grumbling (76)
  • Some thoughts about my work (24)
  • Terror Images (32)
  • Things we never really talked about in art school (32)
  • Trust me, I don't understand contemporary art either (15)
  • Uncategorized (5)
  • Videos of me talking (5)
  • Visual Culture (17)

Calendar

July 2022
M T W T F S S
« Jun    
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Pages

  • About this blog – legal stuff
©2022 UNINTELLIGIBLE MURMURS | Powered by SuperbThemes & WordPress