DIGITAL IDENTITY AT THE AGE OF INFLUENCE

HOW CAN FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES CHANGE TO SUSTAIN UNCOMPROMISED SELF-EXPRESSION AND MINIMISE
THE RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH IDENTITY COMMODIFICATION ONLINE?

Fig. 1 Still from “Chief of Disguise Breaks Down Cold War Spy Cameras” (Wired, 2017)

Ieva Daujotaite
Royal College of Arts
Graduate Diploma (Humanities)
Word Count: 2906
2022
1.
At the age when “data is the new oil”
commerce encourages exposure of pri-
vate information online to establish
power relations and profit. Mediated
through digital technologies, identity
expression is subjected to public visi-
bility and capitalistic ideals associ-
ated with issues like worsening mental
health, discrimination, and polarisa-
tion. How can future technologies change
to sustain uncompromised self-expres-
sion and minimise the risks associated
with identity commodification online?
Since the advent of computers in the
1950s, digitization has enabled the
conversion of physical matter into the
binary code of virtual reality (Press,
2016). All types of enterprises, from
small businesses to government agencies,
are going through a “digital transfor-
mation,” turning digitization into new
processes, activities, and transactions.
But much larger than the translation of
any business into bits and bytes is the
digital translation of human identi-
ty. Accelerated by the pandemic, dai-
ly acts that define our personal lives
from grocery shopping to exercising to
dating have been mass appropriated to
take place online (Marozsan, 2021).
Linked to social media, user accounts
and ‘cookies’, businesses use digital
technologies to make private life pub-
lic. Whether pushed into marketable
trends, improved service or product de-
signs, the translation of human identity
into digital information sustains the
culture of consumption. In this essay,
I explore the ways in which commerce
celebrates public exposure of private
life online to engineer and normalise
voluntary identity commodification.
Sharing private life online has become so com-
mon it is ubiquitous. With more than half of
the world on social media (Dean, 2021), I ques-
tion the roots of such desire in relation to
primitive human instincts. Starting from J.
Lacan’s ‘The Mirror Stage’ I study the psy-
chological factors in the creation of ego.
Then, I discuss the rise of celebrity culture
and its pre-determined role in conditioning
society’s aptitude for consumption and pub-
licity. Followed by the analysis of modern
technologies that involve our digital presence
in exposure to social conventions online, I
come to critique the current problems around
digital identity commodification. From men-
tal health, to polarization, to insensitive
embodiment of digitally edited and/or creat-
ed appearance, I establish why increased vis-
ibility online is a form of bio-power. Last-
ly, through the engagement with M. Foucault’s
theory of the Panopticon and D. Haraway’s cy-
borg, I point to areas of urgency and speculate
about the future of technological advancements.
People are social creatures. Since day one of
Homo Sapiens 300,000 years ago, people rely on
each other for survival (Tomasello, 2014). At
the time, activities that were most central to
survival like hunting or foraging were cooper-
atively structured, as were many other dimen-
sions of their daily lives. Lonely, segregated
Homo Sapiens were significantly more suscepti-
ble to famine, illness, and predatory attacks
(Tomasello, 2014). Therefore, fear of social
isolation is inherent, and ultimately respon-
sible for the formation of modern society which
shields the fragile human physique from multi-
ple threats of nature. Without any other op-
tions, Homo Sapiens assessed their self-coher-
ence by either looking down at a pool of still
dark water or in the eyes of the other (Lowder,
2017). This explains why mirrors – the means
to see our image and thus evaluate our identi-
ty presentation in terms of social coherence –
still play a crucial role in daily life today.
According to a French psychoanalyst Jacques
Lacan, we use the mirror as a simulation of
face-to-face communication: to get feedback on
who we are in relation to other people and the
world (Johnston, 2018). His study shows that
from the age of around six months old human
infants pass through a developmental stage he
calls “the mirror stage”. This stage is reached
when, upon seeing a self-refection in the mir-
ror the body produces a psychological response
that formulates the mental conception of ‘I’
(Johnston, 2018). Having identified with the
externalised image of self, human infants be-
come subjected to two opposing notions. First
being the affirmation of authentic selfhood in
relation to the world and others. And secondly,
the establishment that for being external to
the physical body, self-reflection is a rep-
resentation of self and thus partially ‘other’
in relation to ‘I’ (Fig.2). Because self-reflec-
tion in the mirror exists virtually and prac-
tically independently from ‘real’ relations to
the world, the reality of selfhood rooted in
affiliation with the physical world is forever
desirous of the freedom that self-reflection
dons (Johnston, 2018). Lacan argues that the
establishment of the ‘self’ through self-re-
flection and the consequent distinction of the
‘real’ self from self-representation creates
a sense of internalised duality. This psycho-
analytical phenomenon conceives the alter-ego
- the perception of self in relation to the
world as contrasted with another idealised self.
Fig. 2 Lacan’s ‘mirror stage’ interpreted by Leonie Barth (Seaton,2017)
IEVA DAUJOTAITE: ON DIGITAL IDENTITY AT THE AGE OF INFLUENCE 2.
Although the mirror incites ego it does
so temporarily – only for as long as
the subject chooses to stay in front
of the mirror. As soon as the subject
moves away from the object that repre-
sents it, the image of representation
vanishes as does the magnitude of its
psychological effect. Technological ad-
vancements brought the means to detach
the subject from the object. For ex-
ample, the invention of the camera in
1816 captured the subject permanently
and gave photography the means to ex-
ist in its own right (Smith, 2018). In
turn, the subject became an object, and
the face in the photograph, depending
on the context, could be appropriated to
translate into any desired identity. As
technologies allowed increasingly more
liberty with representation, identities
were fictionalised by being idealised.
Defined by the desire to achieve the
unachievable, ego thrives in a society
whose culture is populated with messag-
es about the idealised human. To explore
how commerce sought the ego, and used
it as a self-sustaining tool of promo-
tion, I take a look at celebrity culture
3.
By distancing the subject from the object
representing it, photography detached
the subject from otherwise physically
inescapable agency of self-representa-
tion. Without limitations of and around
the original subject, the photographed
image was seen as an opportunity to
present a visibly enhanced identity rep-
resentation – a celebrity – to construct
a proxy of those who supposedly satis-
fied their egos by the means of comply-
ing to capitalistic ideals. According
to P. David Marshall (1997), “celebri-
ties are not simply by-products of mod-
ern democratising processes, but rather
constitutive elements of the semiotic
system engaged in the representation of
popular values and means of expression
for mass mentality, and therefore, key
tools of Western liberal democracy.” (
Wesołowski, 2018). From the 20th cen-
tury onwards, with new forms of media
in addition to photography, construct-
ing idealised identities and unrealis-
tic trends became as easy as never be-
fore. Witnessing the constructed reign
of celebrity culture in cinema, televi-
sion, and tabloid journalism, consoli-
dated the spread of subliminal desire
for fame and consumption ( Wesołowski,
2018). To understand how, in relation
to commerce, each resulting factor of
celebrity culture is aggravated over
time, I look at the chronological or-
der of technological advancements from
the internet to personal mobile phones
to the subsequent rise of social media,
and lastly, body-mapping technology.
As far as virtual identity representa-
tion goes, the next biggest techno-
logical breakthrough after photogra-
phy and videography was the internet.
The internet started in the 1960s as
a way for government researchers to
share information (Leiner, 2019).
By 1983 all networks could now be connect-
ed by a universal web language, allowing an-
ybody with access to the internet to express
themselves digitally (Leiner, 2019). This in-
troduced the concept of an online presence.
Starting from basic facts like your name and
date of birth to more detailed entries of pro-
fessional occupation and hobbies, the inter-
net became an ever more extensive catalogue of
publicised identities (Fig. 3) By 2003, the
internet reached every pocked with the intro-
duction of 3G (USwitch, 2021). A year later,
3G phones were fitted with cameras, and as the
popularity of newly established social media
like Facebook soared, it turned everyone with
a smartphone into an agent of public self-rep-
resentation (USwitch, 2021). Equipped with easy-
to-use tools, the general public acted on their
constructed desire for fame which, quite nat-
urally, evolved into a publicly displayed re-
cord of social interest as well as competition.
Fig. 3 Before the internet was an easily accesible commodity: first internet cafe in
Zhongguancun, China (Editor,2017)
IEVA DAUJOTAITE: ON DIGITAL IDENTITY AT THE AGE OF INFLUENCE 4.
Throughout history, the pressure to make a good For example, there is proof to suggests
impression always existed, but intensified with a direct correlation between the emer-
the means to expose our private lives public- gence of face filters on Instagram in
ly. Based on public exposure of private life 2017 (Fig. 4), and an increase in fa-
online, social media put the general public cial plastic surgery (Townley, 2019).
into the shoes of celebrities. Locking people Matthew Schulman, a plastic surgeon in
into the grip of social pressure helped com- New York, says “patients have been com-
merce tap into, and benefit from, the innate ing in with face filtered selfies to
human desire to belong with the community. A show what they want done to their body.”
study showed that the more followers social me- (Adkins, 2018). Perceiving plastic sur-
dia users gain, the more pressure they feel to gery as an ever more normalised ser-
curate their content to the perceived likes of vice objectifies the body as a commodity
the general public (Seiter, 2020). Therefore, and blurs the line between of digital-
in signifying common capitalistic values such ly and physically augmented reality.
as wealth, social class or beauty, following
trends in material possession categories like
clothing, housing or technological equipment
became increasingly more important in digital
identity representation, even when, they were
practically unattainable, or at the very least,
financially unsustainable on a daily life ba-
sis (Seiter, 2020). Given that our identity
representation online became a reflection of
capitalistic ideals, it is fair to say that, by
walking in the footsteps of celebrity culture
we have voluntarily commodified our identities.
Living life by commercial norms of virtual
identity representation, inhibits authentic
self-expression. Erika A. Crawford, a research- Fig. 4 Instagram plastic surgery filter (Mooney, 2019)
er in children’s psychology, states, “the prob-
lem is that this ‘cyber self’ can become in-
creasingly distant from the real-world self,
and it can become harder to live up to the
perfect image of self that is projected on-
line.” (Adkins, 2018). Unmatched standards be-
stow happiness and result in worsening mental
health. According to 16-24-year-olds, four out
of five major social platforms make their anx-
ieties worse (Health Assured, 2022). If left
unattended, triggered emotional distress can
develop into depression, addiction, or body
dysmorphic behaviours which 15 percent of the
time leads to cosmetic surgery (Townley, 2019).
5.
However, whilst social media evident-
ly contributes to mental distress, it
is important to outline that it is not
the root of the problem. According to
Lacan’s psychoanalysis, cognitive in-
stability is the result of more than
just mere publicity; it is a product of
ego in exposure to “conventions of so-
cial life such as language” (Johnston,
2018). This goes to suggest that re-
gardless of what technology comes next,
ego being the product of any virtu-
al representation needs to be guarded
from excessive exposure to the general
public and social conventions that de-
fine it. Given that the internet is de-
signed to optimise the spread of infor-
mation, controlled identity exposure to
“conventions of social life” is prob-
lematic, yet necessary. For instance,
BuzzFeed, an independent digital media
company that began as an experiment to
test what content goes viral, discovered
that identitarian content receives the
most engagement (Klein, 2020). Focused
on identity disparities, identitarian
content welcomes polarisation. For ex-
ample, catchy headlines such as ‘Signs
You Were Raised by Immigrant Parents’
or “30 Things Everyone Who Went to Col-
lege Will Understand,” targets personal
identity with notions of non-inclusivi-
ty (Klein, 2020). Taken to the extreme,
lack of inclusivity and polarization
can endanger people’s lives. From the
deadly Jan. 6 Capital riot, to outrage
over COVID-19 vaccines (Fig. 5), to the
far-right conspiracy theory of ‘QAnon’,
social media’s influence goes above and
beyond that which we imagined upon the
introduction of the supportive like,
fun face filters or instant tagging.
Fig. 5 Anti-vaccine protest in Washington, D.C. (Szabo, 2020)
Having established that excessive online expo-
sure to “conventions of social life” can lead
to consequences like plastic surgery and po-
litical unrest, it is evident that modern dig-
ital technology is intrinsic to physical and
cognitive human augmentation. Naturally, as
technology innovation spreads so does its cul-
tural impact. However, with regulations strug-
gling to keep up with the pace of advanc-
ing technologies, there remains plenty of room
for potential offense (Thierer, 2020). For in-
stance, many video games design avatars whose
physical appearance respond to stereotypical
views about race, gender, age and social class.
IEVA DAUJOTAITE: ON DIGITAL IDENTITY AT THE AGE OF INFLUENCE 6.
To give an example, a video game ‘League of
Maidens’ (Fig. 6) presents female characters
as though they were visions of male fanta-
sies; “bodies have unrealistic typologies and
proportions, with impractical armours that
reveal the character’s overtly naked body.”
(Moldoveanu, 2021). The predatory portrayal
normalises a less human attitude towards the
female body and reinforces sexism. Although
some would excuse culturally unaware avatar
design for being fictional and thus detached
from the conventions of real life, standard-
isation of virtual reality products like the
Oculus Quest Headset (Fig.7) invalidates the
argument by blurring the distinction between
digital and physical body (Haraway, 1991) Fig. 7 The Oculus Quest Headset (Paris, 2020)
To some extent, physical association
with technology gives people back the
agency of self-representation, but does
it? If, as D. Haraway formulates in
‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ (Haraway, 1991)
“we’re inside of what we make, and it’s
inside of us”, then our self-percep-
tion and construction is irrevocably
embedded with capitalistic ideals (Har-
away, 1985). Haraway expands on her ar-
gument by saying that if human biology
is meshing with technology that inhab-
its our culture, then the concept of
human itself is no longer natural and
is instead socially constructed by the
culture it has inhabited. The power to
construct and deconstruct human biolo-
Fig. 6 Digital Avatar in ‘The League of Maidens’ (Steam, 2021)
gy, including that which determines our
race, gender, age and social class, de-
fines technology as a tool of ‘bio-pow-
From 3D printed organs, to fitness watch- er’ - a social governance methodology
es, to ‘smart’ gym equipment digital tech- which focuses on “producing an organ-
nologies are assimilating with the human phy- ic individuality by exerting control
sique. Therefore, it is fair to say that since over bodily activities” (Hoffman, 2011)
the invention of the mirror, technology has
elapsed itself full circle, by re-establishing
physical co-dependency with the human body.
7.
Fig. 8 (Cutieru, The architecture of surveillance: The panopticon
prison 2020)
The term bio-power was coined by Michel
Foucault who in his work titled ‘Dis-
cipline and Punish: The Birth of the
Prison’(Foucault,1979) analyses two
defining factors of bio-power, anato-
mo-politics and bio-politics, in re-
lation to the penal system (Doniger ,
2021). Throughout history, anatomo-pol-
itics, or in other words “politics of the
human body”, reinforced discipline to
control individuals, whereas bio-poli-
tics used punishment to at large reg-
ulate the size of the whole popula-
tion (UniversityQuickCourse, 2020).
To contextualise the effects of bio-power,
Foucault used the metaphor of a Panopticon
(Fig.8) – a building structure, built in New
Dehli 1817, that aimed to discipline and pun-
ish the subjects of a prison and/or isola-
tion ward (Joukowsky Institute for Archaeolo-
gy, 2008). The key to its success lied in its
architecture; a domed cylindrical hall and a
watchtower in the middle with a view to see
each cell. The architect, Jeremy Bentham, who
designed it, claims that the building’s struc-
ture reverses the principle of the dungeon;
instead of depriving the captive of light and
open space, the observed individual is exposed
to it (Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology,
2008) As a result, the guard in the tower can
see the captive, but the captive cannot see
the guard. Derived from Bentham’s theory that
power should be visible yet unverifiable, the
Panopticon was a trap of exposure to light
and omnipresent sight. It proved effective be-
cause, as Bentham formulates it, “he who is
subjugated to a field of visibility, and who
knows it, assumes responsibility for the con-
straints of power [and] becomes the principle
of his own subjection” (Dino, 2002). In sum,
for Foucault, the Panopticon symbolised the
establishment of the “gaze” which enabled two
things: normalised observation which led to col-
lection of knowledge, and power that self-reg-
ulated itself (UniversityQuickCourse, 2020).
Foucault suggested that the Panopticon and the
mechanisms of power it contains extend be-
yond the prison and into other institutions
of society (UniversityQuickCourse, 2020). To-
day, the “gaze” that began with the construc-
tion of the celebrity culture has been re-
cast in numerous video cameras, algorithms,
and body-mapping technologies. Instead of one
watchtower there is countless. With power-re-
lations decentralised yet spread across the
general body of the society, control has become
significantly more visible yet unverifiable.
IEVA DAUJOTAITE: ON DIGITAL IDENTITY AT THE AGE OF INFLUENCE 8.
Having technology outdoors, indoors, on and in-
side our bodies “we are neither in the amphi-
theatre, nor on the stage, but in the panoptic
machine, invested by its effects of power, which
we bring to ourselves since we are part of its
mechanism” (Foucault, 1979). Foucault defines
the mechanism as ‘Panopticism’ – “a kind of in-
ternal surveillance where the watcher is inter-
nalized to such an extent that each ‘prisoner’
becomes his/her own guard.” (Foucault,1979)
If being your own guard means having the lib-
erty to [de]construct your own self, then both
thinkers, Haraway and Foucault have arrived at
an argument which agrees that technological
advancement brings people to the thin line be-
tween self-agency and self-destruction. Having
traced the origins, applications and effects
of the public exposure of private life – as
the equivalent of the “gaze”- in relation to
identity digitisation, I know the future de-
pends not on technologies but on the individ-
ual mindsets of people themselves. On the one
hand therein lies an opportunity to move away
from issues of discrimination, worsening men-
tal health and polarisation by self-regulat-
ing exposure to the “gaze” and building tech-
nological interventions that critically defy
pre-established biases about the human iden-
tity. On the other hand, continued commodi-
fication of human identities for the sake of
profit alone, can extinguish all collective
efforts to move away from stereotypes, narcis-
sism, and inauthenticity. The choice is ours.
9. IEVA DAUJOTAITE: ON DIGITAL IDENTITY AT THE AGE OF INFLUENCE 10.

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FIGURES

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