The Simulacrum Revisited

We are podcasting fools right now. They’re not the traditional half hour of gab (yet), but they’re targeted on interesting things that we’re working on. Kind of like our upcoming foray into micro-publishing - from side-stapled pamphlets to awesome little books on stuff that matters. Just a little shilling to get us started. But seriously, click the podcast link over on the right for awesome stuff.

InVerge happened last week, and Eric and I attended. At the risk of sounding like old news, I wanted to pick on the concept embodied in Ed Lantz’ talk. The core of the conference is focused on the concept of “interactive convergence” - the notion that the audience is not only listening but participating. Mr. Lantz is developing dome media - so an immersive, nearly-virtual-reality experience projected across a dome of any size.

Ed gave a pretty mind blowing demo of the technology. And it’s totally interactive and converges on things, so as usual I can’t fault the organizers for having him there. And he is a capital-e Evangelist of the uses of this kind of media - for education, for entertainment, for anything. But now we must talk about obscure French people.

Guy Debord wrote The Society of the Spectacle in 1967, in reaction to, mostly, television. It’s a good read, and delivered in bite size form. The heart of the matter is that we are bombarded with nonsense, and thus desensitized and reconfigured as passive consumers, no matter our level of personal freedom in “real life.” Contrast this with Web 2.0 social networking applications, where the value received is directly related to the contribution and effort committed to the network. I would argue that the Spectacle as collaborative practice becomes a different thing - a liberation theology for the audience.

I think that this dome thing, for all its cool factor, is not interactive at the same level. Even when you’re fully immersed, I’m not convinced that you’re more than your own version of a Sim. Mr. Lantz’ big idea is a fully rendered customer experience; you’re at a virtualized night club, with your avatar wearing smokin’ purple hotpants because that’s how you roll, shooting little cupid’s arrows to the lizard creature at the bar - and they show up as hit’s on the avatar owner’s LED clothing. Like I said, amazing, but here’s the rub: you’re still a passive consumer of the whole event.

There’s the difference, and I think it’s a potent one as you consider your message out to customers. Is it gobbledigook? Is it the prettiest un-interactive thing ever? Are there ways that you can develop interactivity and audience participation? Meditate, then mediate.