It takes a village

I'm sitting in a café in France. There's a lot of chatter around me. This morning I was 'on the Internet'. How different these experiences are. It's hard to compare pears with apples, and yet we often do. Working in the office and working from home, for example, are similar, looking for company on social networks or in a café, for example, reading in the library or researching on the internet. These are apples and oranges, similar and yet categorically different. On the Internet, however, we are ultimately alone. We can interact virtually, our image, our movement and our voice can be communicated, but physically we are separate. Metavers will not fundamentally change this, and this is also where the Matrix reached its limits.

But this morning I was thinking about adrenaline. How different it feels 'alone' in front of a screen or in a café. In a room with other people, this feeling of stress and anxiety transforms into excitement. I wonder if anything can be deduced from this observation. What does it mean to be alone or together in a virtual or real space?

‚A soul at work‘ ist der Titel eines Buches von Agamben. Wir sind dem Netz bloß anhängig, füttern es und die kommerzielle Wertschöpfung erfolgt bei den großen Techunternehmen und politischen Demagogen. Sind wir emotional und hormonell nicht noch in der Steinzeit? Können wir unsere Biochemie kognitiv wirklich ändern? Wie lässt sich von hier aus Foucaults Begriff der Biopolitik neu verstehen?

Although we can also guide, transform and understand our feelings through meditation, this solitude of meditation is borne in a greater consciousness, it is something other than being at the mercy of a screen. Media art is actually about this fundamental experience. The aesthetic experience in the temples of art gives us the social space within which we can engage with the potentials and irritations of the digital, virtual, telematic, collective and isolated.

It takes a village: Community, interaction with children, sharing a social space - these are corrective factors for our hormone balance.