IDENTITY COMMUNICATION
THROUGH PICTURE CAPTURE AND ITS BROADCASTING IN SOCIAL NETWORKS
2015
Nowadays,
carrying around mobile devices capable of capturing images to be called
“photographies”, as well as the ease with which technology allows us to publish
them on social networks, is a fact that has become naturalized, opening up for
the receptor a channel of multiple interpretations. Likewise, that same device
grants us unnumbered ways to modify them, systematize
them, automate them or even plagiarize them. As a consequence, this fact has so
great an impact on society that the new generations take it for granted, and
make a habit of something that has barely begun to be the subject of research
in order to differentiate its becoming adapted from its becoming naturalized,
and meet due regulations a posteriori.
This habit of “sharing” images on social media encourages anonymity and
under that guise new hazards for web surfers have come into play, such as
identity theft, hacking, trolling, stoking...
The fact that this is a “naturalized” phenomenon that has been welcome
by a number of human societies, does not prove that it has been “normalized”, since
there are no norms harnessing the aforementioned possibilities that pose
potential harm for web surfers.
Investigating the authorship of an image that has been published in
social media calls for a multidisciplinary approach, in order to yield a
transdiciplinary outcome; that is, a crossbreed between different theories and sciences. Cultural identity, vernacular semiotics,
personal semiotics of the web surfer, as well as knowledge both of the device
and of the structure of the picture itself, render data about the identity
behind the sought-for anonymous. In the
same manner, Gestalt principles of image, ophthalmology, together with knowledge
of photography optics and neuroscience –among other sciences-, are at the same
time components and foundation of the object of study of this investigation –still
in trial mode- called Psychography: Drawings Of The Mind.
Many
photography experts and communicators use the expression “Democratization of
image” to describe the masses’ widespread consumption of mobile devices with
apps for capturing images instantly. It leads us to the etymological definition
of our subject, “democracy”:
1. Political system where the people freely elect those who govern them. Liberties
were reinstated in Spain and censorship ended as transition and democracy came
about.
2. Doctrine or notion that safeguards the people’s participation in
important matters of government: democracy is the political ideal because
government is by the people.
If images shared over social networks are ruled by society (vox populi),
then it is important to mention the conditions imposed on users by each social
network. The most popular social networks allow postings that can later be
censored; for instance, the naked human body, due to explicit sexual content
(in whose opinion?), or by the interpretative discomfort of another user/receptor.
But let us not digress about limitations that social networks adopt and impose
on their users. The purpose of psychographic research is getting to know, as
closely as possible, the identity of the anonymous person generating the image,
regardless of the obviated, observable content.
First world governments of our time invest in research and studies in order
to detect -a priori- negative events
that hurt society. Those countries are worried about the widespread use and/or
free-access democratization and communication costs of networks that are
harmful to their nations. In less pandemic terms, it is important to exert some
“control” or to be able to detect –a
priori- who are the ones inflicting harassment, stealing identities, among
other hazards against smaller sectors such as the community where we belong or
even every society’s basic cell: the family.
It is easy to mix up the various applications of Psychography. First of
all because it’s a new, propositive tool. Like any new object or event, it must
be compared to something in order to comprehend it or use it.
This study -born in Mexico nine years ago-, is still in the testing
phase. However, from the perspective that it is expounded, a barrier stands in
the way: our current Constitution, because according to it no offense can be
prosecuted until it becomes consummated. That is why fellow nationals are not
interested in the early detection of acts that might be illegal. However, this pursuit
spreads widely on its own, throughout the social network, reaching people
interested in preventing unlawful acts.
In Mexico, those who have donated their images for study and examination
are pioneers who hold Psychography in high regard. Psychography comprehends -both at individual
and collective levels- that mental map that automates us as society. Its
therapeutic application came about per se. But, as we explained before, there
is a pandemic of other applications stemming from the data and projection
offered by images. For every nation and individual, there is an application.
Statements by authors
who support research.
How can an image “reveal” the identity of the one who captured it? In order not
to dwell on long-winded explanations, let us just say that technocracy has
enshrouded the possibilities of new, simple tools: observation and a
multidisciplinary approach. These two allow for a simple outcome which at the
same time is complex because of its transdisciplinariety. It all lies in knowing how to observe the
image that has been offered us for its psychographical reading, divide it in
the number of quadrants proposed by the study itself, and “interpret” the
gestaltic lines captured in the picture. This is based in the fact that our
eyes are conscious of one ninth of whatever image they see, or 30% of it2.
The remaining of the image is visual unconsciousness. A projection from the
subconscious can very likely take place in 70% of the perimeter, which the eye
sees without being aware of it. Let us gradually unfold an explanation about
this, quoting several authors’ definitions.
Consciousness. Rooted in the Latin voice conscientia (“with knowledge”),
consciousness is a word that describes the physical act by means of which we
perceive ourselves in the world. Furthermore, consciousness is a property of
the human spirit that allows us to see ourselves in terms of essential
attributes. Let’s not forget that the word “psyche” -of Greek origins-, translates
as a duality: mind and/or soul. That might be the origin of the phrase, “eyes
are windows to the soul”.
Focus. “State of mind that lets us fix our
attention on something without getting distracted”. In photo composition we
talk about points of interest and the Rule of Thirds. This makes the viewer aware
of the obviated subject, without straying from the symbolic load that it confers
semiotically on every culture. This is dealt with in the book Blind Spot.
“Never before had anyone noticed a blind spot in the eye. Actually, that
blind spot is very sneaky and cannot be detected by chance. Even if we close
one eye and look around, we won’t be able to detect it unless we diligently
seek for it”5.
Fortunately, not everyone who uses cameras or mobile devices with apps for
image capturing is familiar with these explanations, neither knowledgeable
about the devices being used. He is not expected too. That is why they are
called “users”. We are not talking here about photographers.
2 2008 Campimetry, Optical Instruments, University
of Barcelona; Fontanela J. R., Grau M.
3 Definition of Consciousness – What
It Is, Meaning and Concept http://definicion.de/conciencia/#ixzz3fgua09tC
5 Blind Spot. Lobo Enrique y Gómez Milán Emilio
Photographers are visually educated people. They have nothing to do with
camera users, or users of mobile devices with image-capturing apps.
Photographers are knowledgeable of the physics of light. That is how they got
their name: photo = light. Photographers look for the best angles trying to convey
with light the insights they want to get across, their desired intention
according to the field of their photographic expertise, and they even pick the
lenses that best frame the narrative that they –as authors- want to expound or
communicate.
This is what I call The Rule Of Three P’s, which are: Perspective +
Proportion yield Perception. This last one can still get distorted by the
viewer’s interpretation, yielding a fractal interpretative result. Maybe this
is where the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” comes from. Those
thousand words represent said interpretations, which lead us to collective,
cultural and personal semiotics.
This is how research on psychography got started some years ago before
becoming multidisciplinary, so that its interpretation is not a projection of
the interpreter, who at this point will be called “psychographer”.
“All knowledge operates through the selection of meaningful data and the
rejection of data that are not meaningful. It divides (tells apart,
disassembles), and brings together (associates, identifies); it organizes in a
hierarchy (the main, the lesser), and centralizes (based on a nucleus of key
notions). These operations, that resort to logics, are in fact commanded by
‘supralogic’ principles of though organization or paradigms; hidden principles
that rule our vision of things and of the world, without our awareness”8.
“Science constitutes a knowledge of a special kind. It deals primarily,
though not exclusively, with unobservable events unsuspected by the uneducated
layman, such as the evolution of stars and the duplication of chromosomes. It
invents and tries conjectures beyond common knowledge, such as the laws of quantum
mechanics or those of conditioned reflexes; and it tests such assumptions with
the help of special techniques…” Bunge9 (2004)
7 2002, “Influence Of Peripherical
Stimulation On Visual Memory”. Madrid; Pilar Berrocal Mora. Gloria Hermida Salamanca.
Directora: Pilar Plou Campo.
8 “Blind Intelligence”; Morin,
Edgar
The
transition of images from analogical to digital resulted not only in its
democratization but was also the onset of a pandemic amidst an uneducated
democracy, unaware of visual knowledge and its composition rules.
We
can’t drift away from technology. We are part of the omnipresent technocracy of
our time and the naturalization it grants to new generations. The intended
“normalization” for a new reading of images looks nothing like the norms that
social networks put in place. In the quest for a criteria to normalize the
reading of images -far removed from the norms of art or photography-,
psychography delves into reading every quadrant of the image, discerning the
subconscious projections made on its blind spots by users of mobile devices
with image-capturing apps. The less the user knows of the laws of light and image
composition, the larger the projective subconscious information supplied and
vice versa. Comprehensive knowledge acts as a filter of the mental map that
psychography is set to read.
“No
wonder it has been asserted that we are entering a historical epoch in which
the image will take over from the written word. In view of this claim it is all
the more important to clarify the potentialities of the image in
communication…”10.
Findings of this research. The
multidisciplines that make up the field of study named psychography yield local
and communal information. Psychography discriminates identities in a world
divided in East and West, with a lot more information on the latter, its
birthplace. A number of moods accompanying psychological projections can be
detected the moment an image is captured. Psychography also tells us about that
which rules our subconscious behavior; mental structures learnt during early
childhood, adolescence and even adulthood. It is important to remember that “one
picture does not make psychography”12. Given the conclusions reached
by psychography so far, the larger the number of images to be read, the larger
the information drawn about the identity of the one who captures them. It is
worth mentioning that images (regardless of their content or subject), do not
necessarily reveal identity traits. There is a lot to be known and a lot to be
done regarding both the way our research is outlined, and the way we propagate how
this information is obtained.
10 “The
Visual Image: Its Place In Communication”; Gombrich Ernst
12
Paraphrasing Aristotle in Nicomachean
Ethics Summary and Analysis of Book One:
“One
swallow doesn’t make a summer”, EN I 7, 1098a19-20.
One
consequence of postmodern propositions in social sciences is the critique of
the notion of subject as an entity with essential features accessible to
scientific research, a task undertaken mainly by positivist psychology. The
modern subject is deconstructed13”
Conclusions of research. Neuroscience
seems to explain many of the whys of mankind, and of our behavior as a species.
The integration of technology is part of our history. We have adapted to the
natural conditions of our surroundings. The consequences of those
modifications, external and internal, continue to develop. We cannot put aside
the “technocracy” that facilitates communication, and the consequences thereof,
“we can no longer be blind to the invisible”. Reality is nothing but every
individual’s perception of his surroundings, and how he or she adapts to them
internally.
As a
generation, we are a bridge between the tangible and the digitalized
(intangible), between real and modified, between visible and not coded for the
limited perception of the human eye (invisible?).
Technology
-and particularly the digitalization of the tangible- opens a gap that cuts off
all which cannot be digitalized. Values, thoughts, feelings, memories,
behaviors… identities.
We live
in a world swamped with images of all kinds. We live immersed in an uneducated
democracy. No matter what our IQ is, we will all end up being users.
Democratized digitalization cares only about ID. That is the identity that
psychography examines, codifies and translates.
The
human eye perceives things with a lag of 1/60th of a second, and
stores them in a millisecond judging them according to personal perspective and
in terms of their importance. Photography is static. Technology and the mobile
devices it has created work to our advantage. In truth, we are blind people
taking selfies in our surroundings. I am saying it this way because the
capturing screens of mobile devices -due to their size and quality- don’t let
you see the “reality” being sought for. Users experiment with their devices and
claim, “this picture didn’t turn out the way I wanted”. Ignoring the working
process of the device they declare, “this is not a good camera”.
What if
images have been manipulated? That doesn’t matter. Psychography divides images
into quadrants in order to discern mental maps. Mental maps have been detected
thanks to various behavioral features of the aforementioned donors who handed
down this information.
13
2003; The Anchoring Of Personal Identity”, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Resumed by: Revilla Carlos.
It is
of the utmost importance to mention that the conclusions of psychography are no
recipes to be propagated virally on the web. Since the identified traits and
features of personality are private, not only is it necessary to know the
disciplines that make up psychography but also the ethics that shape the
responsibility of the psychographer. (Norm of the norm).
Connection with local, national and
international settings:
Technocracy
ruling the world and the omnipresent digitalization have unified us as web
surfers. In spite of all the differences keeping us apart –cultural, religious,
political, sexual, geographical and more-, we are becoming virtually adapted to
yielding readings of casual, petty images. Those are the ones that render more
abundant information.
The
problem of breaking anonymity by the agency of image is a problem of our time.
It is local, communal, national and international. It brings you and I together
because giving out our personal information to compulsory digitalization makes
us vulnerable.
Images
shared online are but a tool among many for making out identity through picture
capture and broadcasting in social networks.
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