#undinge

the one in the well or umswelt

AR:: “Undinge” emphasises the ideas, found in many of your books, that in the place of building relationships with others – or the other – humans are increasingly mirroring themselves. Nevertheless people do live in relationships and even today remain attached to objects that they don’t want to throw away. What’s the difference between then and now, then being the time before globalisation and digitalisation?

BCH ::  I don’t know if people who spend all their time looking at smartphones still have or need objects that are close to their heart. Objects are receding into the background of our attention. The current hyperinflation of objects, which has led to their explosive proliferation, only highlights our increasing indifference towards them. They are almost stillborn.

Our obsession is no longer for objects, but for information and data. Today we produce and consume more information than objects. We actually get high on communication. Libidinal energies have been redirected from objects to nonobjects. The consequence is infomania. We are all infomaniacs now. Object fetishism is probably over. We are becoming information- and data-fetishists. Now there is even talk of datasexuals. Tapping and swiping a smartphone is almost a liturgical gesture, and it has a massive effect on our relationship to the world. Information that doesn’t interest us gets swiped away. Content we like, on the other hand, gets zoomed in, using the pincer movement of our fingers. We literally have a grip on the world. It’s entirely up to us.