In our age of folly, our age of bewilderment, an invitation to join my new social media stream

 

21 August 2020 (Serifos, Greece) – When we venture into self-discovery, we walk a tightrope between deep insights –  and profound solipsism. We need to avoid pompous navel gazing, self-indulgency. So sitting on my rock in the Mediterranean, this is my attempt to do that, in our age of folly, our age of bewilderment, as the world moves from pandemic to protest and back again. A time of sickness and scoundrels.

This is an invitation to join me in a new venture, what I hope will be an intellectual feast. But before I get to that, let me set the table.

I am by profession a lawyer, a writer, a journalist (and in my wildest dreams, a historian). As a lawyer I began my career working for clients in the technology, media, and telecom (TMT) sectors. I stayed in those sectors. It drew me to my own video and film production work, and I still produce a bi-monthly newsletter for my TMT clients while my team produces bespoke videos. When I first began creating videos and films, my storyboards … the graphic organizers that consist of illustrations or images which are displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualising a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence … were my narrative building blocks, and I used those same techniques in writing.

 

But somewhere along the line … it is hard to say exactly when … I became completely turned off to main stream media, and social media. The decline was gradual, like that of a person moving into old age, inconspicuous from day to day until it becomes an established, relentless reality.

Certainly my comfort of living and writing from a remote part of Greece helps, being in a place that is a bit mysterious at times and even a bit impenetrable at times, but awesome – made of earth, air, fire and water. It breathes. Here you can get a bit nearer to the stars and the ether. I am surrounded by people who actually enjoy face-­to-­face encounters, away from a national conscious with its fevers of conspiracy and ancient hatreds and malignity. My world here is not yet poisoned and mutilated; we still delight in the seasonal rhythms … and the regenerations.

That media churn I spoke of had become exhausting and debilitating. We are all painfully aware – how could anyone not be? – that on every topic (not just pandemics, not just police brutality, not just politics) we face daily misogyny, nastiness, deliberate trolling and the howling lack of nuance, and piles of gross misinformation. You get an impression that the real noises of life reach you, but muted, all connection with reality strained out. Today I don’t even “read” Linkedin or Twitter but use APIs like Cronycle and Factiva that curate the whole social media firehose so I only receive selected, summarized material that pertains to my research or reading need.

And as my regular readers know, I hate this faux social environment that rewards simplicity and shortness, and punishes complexity and depth and nuance. I simply detest it. I am haunted by Carl Sagan’s comment from 1995:

 

So I invite you to join me in a ….

… which in ancient Greek actually means “thinking” or “the object of complete thought”. It is my intention to delve deeper into issues, at greater length and with more historical and social context, in order to illuminate pathways of thought that are simply not possible to pursue through the immediacy of daily media. I want to cover a range of concerns that include but are not limited to art and philosophy, and climate eschatology, and digital capitalism, and geopolitics.

I tend to write blog pieces in tandem because the modern human moves through myriad, overlapping  spheres. Entanglements. Just a few of my works-in-progress to understand those entanglements as I see them:

– my continuing series on the coronavirus: its weaknesses, our understanding of an immune response, the  complex relationship this virus has with our bodies and our societies. Viruses are unimaginably varied and ubiquitous. And it is just becoming clear through our study of this coronavirus how much they have shaped the evolution of all organisms since the very beginnings of life.

– the continuing enterprization of our personal lives (Zoom, working-from-home, etc.) That decade of consumer-led technological change has led many of us to become our own multi-organizational enterprise.

– our always-on conflict culture: the how and why it wears us out, how capitalism and its dehumanizing effect on the social landscape has created a commodity culture.

– my examination of data network effects and how they manifest power dominance: how the tectonic shifts in our relationship with technology go way beyond social media and our attempts to regulate (reign in?) that technology, those social spaces, totally missing the big picture of how we’ve shifted from comprehensible hierarchies to less-intelligible, incomprehensible networks.

– how the coronavirus lockdown has led to a Cambrian Explosion of virtual spaces. We are learning so much about the dynamics of digital places and semi-spatial software, and the mega-leap in video and film production. This will drive incredible evolution in design and content patterns over the coming months and years.

What I will do is step outside all of the usual lanes and to cross disciplines, social silos, political tribes and cultural boundaries. And several of my pieces will have non-English versions to accommodate many members of my readership that now cross six languages.

Because you need to step outside the usual lanes. Those myriad spheres I noted above – orientations, value sets, law, art, science, eros, economy, politics, just to name a few – are on different and often conflicting trajectories, but overlapping.

My work will be presented through text, through photographs, through video and other media via a new web site that will act as a conduit to my regular writing and to my video/film/photography work. The content will primarily be mine, but it will be augmented with contributions by several other writers and media producers who have asked to participate so they can profile their work. And something like this can never be executed alone. My video team, graphic artists, and researchers … six young, very energetic lads and lasses for whom digital media is child’s play … will keep me on my toes. And my inspiration comes from the Cambrian Explosion of virtual spaces which you can read in more detail here.

The site will eventually be an archive of all of my material. The new site is …

Link to the site:  www.luminative.media

 

Please scan the site to see what I have already filmed, what I have already written, what I am going after.

If it looks interesting, you can subscribe to Luminative Media via the sign-up block at the bottom of the web site’s home page … or you can just click on the following email address (or cut & paste it in your browser) and tell me you want to subscribe: [email protected]. This is a free subscription and is separate from the aforementioned TMT client newsletter though some pieces will be cross-shared between the lists.

And, yes, my media team will blast the occasional piece on my Linkedin account and Twitter account but I’m pretty much off those channels.

Many thanks, and I hope you will join me.