“Anonism” presented by Hitoyo


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Symposium:


Session Title:
  • Digital Identity, Surveillance, Cyberactivism

Presentation Title:
  • Anonism

Presenter(s):


Venue(s):


Abstract:

  • The Advent of the Internet
    What is the newest media in history, “the Internet” trying to tell human beings? Why did this dimension open right in front of us at our turn of lives? On the Internet, we do not own a body, but only our spirits flow in the newly cultivated dimension. All people are “anonymous” online. In the world of the Internet, there are no borders between one another. Only our spirits repeat connecting, forming a greater another. The Internet has given us a deeper meaning to the concept “anonymity”, and it has also made it extremely accessible to us. The essence of the Internet is to remind our true existences as anonymous beings, the integration of oneself and others, and to move humans to the new frontier of greater aggregation. This is the
    hypothesis of the concept, “Anonism.

    What is “Anonism”?
    Introducing “Anonism”, it is a coined word that indicates anonymous activities. This demonstrates the idea of devoting one’s consciousness to anonymous activities throughout their daily lives, whether online or offline. Under this idea, it undergoes social experiments to update human minds to realize the “coexistence of technology and human beings”. “Anonism” has initially acted as an experimental “meme” online, which infects like virus to various media (mainly via a Japanese twitter account holding 220K followers: @sazae_f), and human minds. Currently the twitter account (@sazae_f) is also part of “Anonism” ’s media art that depicts universal reality with some element of critical thinking.

    “We shape our tools and then our tools shape us” said Marshall McLuhan, similarly this bot which initially started out as a mere account, now it somehow serves as a tool that shapes human beings. Through the anonymous activities in the digital community/real world, Anonism’s activities aim to make humans conscious of our need to free ourselves from status and titles, and our need to express speech and actions with more consciousness, especially when we are anonymous, which is when our soul is close to the naked state. Anonism aims to spread memes in order to expand the Internet’s dimension from a mere tool used in daily lives, into a form of thought.

    Eastern Origin
    Respecting the eastern thought of 間 (pronounced ma-) or “emptiness” in art, the practitioner of Anonism activities remain anonymous in order to leave space for the viewers’ expanding infinite imagination. This way the thought will continue to aim for its completion along with the mass of participants’ endless active imaginations. Anonism is an eternallyunfinished
    existence.

    Goal
    By receiving the real voice delivered to humans via the advent of the Internet, we realize that being anonymous is our true selves. All humans are anonymous before birth and after death. Therefore, our anonymous activities will affect directly to our world. Anonism’s central concept is to realize that “the world is you”.

    ISEA2016
    The presentation for ISEA will be a real-life experiment on how people react to being completely anonymous (which is how we all are online), and how their state of mind influence the world, under the concept of “the world is you”.

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