Abstract

The dissolution of the ‘identity’ as we used to know it (before the networks) has led to an ongoing fragmented and fast evolution. In a networked society, identities can be formed by extremely varied and juxtaposed layers of what results finally as an “enriched self.” In fact, there’s a constant mediation that is applied to every single identity through multiple platforms and standards usually identified with the popular “web 2.0” expression. This mediation leads to multiple partial representations of the self in a multilayered form. What happens is that out of the ordinary physical life, our mind has already started to think in these terms. We feel our identity not anymore as an indivisible whole, but as composed of different pieces that are deeply and reciprocally influenced by our online experience.

• Alessandro Ludovico (IT) is a media critic and chief editor of Neural magazine since 1993. He’s one of the founders of the Mag.Net (Electronic Cultural Publishers) organization, has been a research fellow at the Willem de Kooning Academy (Rotterdam, NL), and served as an advisor for the Documenta 12’s Magazine Project.

Full text (PDF) p.  223-224