2025 SPE Annual Conference: Adaptations
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print this pagePleasing Our Digital Mother
Stafford Smith
Friday, October 03 - 10:00AM to 11:00AM
STU 220
Photography exploits our infantile need for attention. This exploitation has been growing since the early days of the medium, but has suddenly reached a crisis point with the dawning of social media. The true impact of the digital age on photography is the reversal of our relationship with the camera. It is no longer a tool that we control. It has become a device to whose authority we willingly submit.
Today, social media allows for unprecedented distribution and attention from friends, family, strangers, data-miners and marketers. Children are getting sophisticated cameras and publishing platforms at about the age that they begin to separate from their parents' constant attention. An invisible digital mother is stepping in to shower them with thumbs up icons, acronyms and emoticons while simultaneously creating a huge digital portrait of their tastes, interests, travels and future plans.
Tools used to be devices to aid in the creation of new things. Today they are devices that allow us to participate in someone else's game. Worse, as subjects, we aren't even good enough for the technology. Plastic surgery, skin treatments and scripted scenarios are becoming common as personal photos and videos must pass muster for broader audiences whose level of expectation has increased. High resolution files and screens reveal imperfections that when retouched create avatars we cannot live up to. Like a smiling child wishing to please, we turn our perfectly reconstructed selves to our digital mother seeking her approval.
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Stafford Smith
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