The severely repressed and censored information flow structures of the Egyptian autocracy were–amongst other factors–a large contributor to the intense swelling and eventual organization of its citizens [to protest in disgust, its country's misuse of power]. Today, we have learned that public isn’t simply defined by what one knows, but rather that it is a meta-concept (Zeynep Tufekci) consisting of knowing what others know, one knows and so on. Overcoming pluralistic ignorance, or in other words, overcoming thinking that one is perpetually in the minority, seems to start with distribution and the rearrangement of receiving networks. Yet, this claim some how comes off vague largely because of its specificities. At what weight of severity do such distributive techniques become powerful and actually effective? Is it with time and thus accumulation that allow for collective empowerment, criticality and awareness?

I would like to think, perhaps naively, that the organization of information and its subsequent dispersal–this only effective alongside leaking/intervening/subverting this information into specific channels and outlets–is enough to shift individual perception and henceforth introduce potentiality. We need propaganda and ideology, but a kind that is undeclared from the premise, a formation without an immediate graspable structure.

The, Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, was a large, voluminous, series of French encyclopedia’s edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert published between 1751 and 1772.  The Encyclopédie was made up of hundreds of contributors, including scientists, philosophers, scholars, craftsman, etc. and as one can only imagine, its contents were disparate and its contributors largely politically un-unified. Regardless, in an attempt to encompass and archive the world’s knowledge, the Encyclopédie was meant to be dispersed and read in order to educate the individual (in the process freeing her logic from the church).  Yet, while many of its contributors remained disinterested in reforming France and a great deal never actually read the immense volumes, the Encyclopédie played an integral precursory role in the French Revolution: its symbolic value represented changing paradigms.

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Hand Motions is a blog column on DINCA continually featuring writing from Louis Doulas, Wyatt Niehaus and Ria Roberts.

The Infinite Scroll

We can observe the way content is aggregated online, that being in an up to down, down to up fashion, a reference to a type of acceleration or flow, a stream, or a river. However, these particularities seem to be largely informed by the motion of the human hand, more specifically a gesture of the finger. The mouse and scroll button are designed to intuitively and comfortably consolidate these up to down navigations, while horizontal movement of the finger proves to be naturally awkward and inefficient and thus the endless vertical scroll becomes what is most ergonomically productive, and quintessential of online surfing.

Process/Endurance Reflection

The blog, in all its forms, exists in a preparatory state: always in progress, always in research and always continuing.  It gestures and proceeds rather than lingers.

24/7 Sweat

Hand Motions references and contextualizes both what is contained within and outside of the screen.

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Hand Motions is a blog column on DINCA continually featuring writing from Louis Doulas, Wyatt Niehaus and Ria Roberts.