i wish i hadn't deleted my xanga :(

Clare Bishop makes a reasonable point in her contribution to the discourse on digital art.

As artists, we are individuals responding to the technological revolution as it is happening around us.

This response is not always acknowledging of the way that perceptions and actions have changed, because these changes in habit and form are gradual and become quotidian. 

These everyday practices seep into are art making, but in our expression, Clare Bishop feels (and I agree to a certain extent) that there is a glazing if not ignorance of the why (if not also the what and the how).

In our experience, it is crucial in critical thinking to acknowledge thought.

-To ask "Why am I thinking what I think?"

-To ask "Why am I feeling the way I feel?"

and by extension here

-To ask "Why do I/we do the things that I/we do?"

Bishop sees a lack in the acknowledgment of active thinking and making about our actions in our present digital environment.

As a response to the overwhelming nature of our daily digital lives, works have turned to the analog for nostalgia, the social and public for physical contact, and in other ways dodged the elephant on the screen.

We are in a transitional period (as we always are). Is it not crucial to recognize that there is a difference between the then and the now (if not only to emphasize the now)?

We are "prosumers" that actively co-produce content on:

the Internet- our dominant social field.

I find this disconcerting to a certain extent, but also very intriguing, and believe as Bishop does, that it should be explored.

I am currently working on a piece related to this subject, and it isn't easy.

I feel that the difficulty may lie in the failure of my group members to fully grasp the concept which has been illuminated here.

Any complete portrait of an individual in the present day must represent two personas, the online (digital) and the actual (physical).

In reality these personas may conflict (or in our case both be totally banal).

It is difficult to address the fact that how we exist online, is different that how we exist IRL.

Our presentation of self online is active, interesting, and multiple.

Our actual presentation of self may be active, interesting, and multiple- but in completely different interpretations of the words.

Now we exist as data as much as in real life to others (potentially). 

This digital code, as Bishop points out, is inherently alien to human perception.

Yet we must go beyond the mere understanding of clicking buttons, and reevaluate or function in the matter.