The Heart is a…
When we post un-narrated risible phone videos to our favorite platforms, certain that this — this! captures more than anything else l’esprit du temps. Only in *this* moment, we tell ourselves, is the full nature of existence distilled down, readymade for American consumption. Cowboys and clowns, oder? Yet the camera, the graphic chip, the video card, can never quite capture the Now-ness of a moment. Time cannot not proceed while attempts are made to crystallize that which has already passed. The self-image has lost its exchange value — one’s body, the basic unit of currency has long (a decade is an eternity) been rendered worthless in light of the endless pornography available for no cost to the viewer. And fuck the viewee — that’s what she or he is there for, no? The IG “snap,” carefully edited, posed and posted only when it’s certain to receive the maximum views is always already obsolete. For a market in which marginal value accrues to those who provide most dear at pennies, the camera, the iPhone, IG, Twitter — they don’t stop watching. The world does not sleep.
