Keyholes
Current location:
Milwaukee, WI, USA
Reading:
The Human Scaffold
by Josh Berson
Listening:
Electronic Music from the Eighties and Nineties
by Carl Stone
(if you have a moment, reply with your own 3-item status)
Keyholes
Our lives are stippled with parasocial relationships.
We engage with other peoples' work and feel connected to those people as a consequence.
Sometimes these relationships go deeper and we make contact with these makers-of-things, and sometimes we engage with photos of them doing non-work things, videos of them being interviewed, tours of their homes, their offices, their lifestyles—content that makes us feel closer to them despite a lack of direct connection.
Each new touchpoint, whatever its shape, is like peering through a keyhole into someone else's reality.
Almost always, of course, our perception of what's happening on the other side of that keyhole is subtly or heavily distorted.
We see a version of their lives, their work, their priorities that are refined, curated, trimmed, filtered, and optimized for external consumption. We also apply our own biases and learnings from previous experiences to what we consume, further distorting what's presented to us.
I've been thinking about this dynamic a lot, lately, as I'm in the process of reworking a (thankfully small) portion of my home for public consumption.
I'll be shooting more video in the coming months, and alongside the technical concerns (lighting, audio, etc) I want to make what's in the frame reflective of myself and my work without distracting from the actual content in the process.
Who am I when viewed through this particular keyhole?
How might I accurately and purposefully shape this compositional context?
It's an interesting challenge, and one I may have figured out (at least for this upcoming project's initial incarnation).
But this has been a useful process to work through, in general, as it has forced me to flag and assess my parasocial relationships with others while also making sure what's being presented to those who consume my work is clear, useful, and representative without being too-polished or unrealistically altered.
Some of what's out there is working, some isn't. There's work to be done, but I think I have a better sense of how to do that work, now.
Concisely, though, I believe these keyhole-scale compositions should present our narratives, offerings, and perspectives in the most useful and digestible way across whichever mediums are most relevant to the subject-matter, intended audience, and the conversations we want to have (and relationships we want to build atop those conversations).
If you found some value in this essay, consider buying me a coffee :)
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Things I've Made This Week
Select, recent works from across my project portfolio.
Aspiring Generalist: Doing Difficult Things
Brain Lenses: Online Exposure (podcast)
Climate Happenings: EU Wants in on IRA EV Benefits
Let’s Know Things: Alt-Tech (podcast)
Curiosity Weekly / Daily: Nov 1 / Nov 1
One Sentence News: Nov 2 (podcast)
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Interesting & Useful
Infinite Scroll of Random Images from the Metropolitan Museum — electricnotebook.neocities.org
Click through to learn more about each piece.
The Ultimate Manhole Covers Site — manhole.co.il
Under the city's surface there is an underground city, a city that its only purpose is to serve the upper city.
Bird Migration Explorer — explorer.audubon.org
Your guide to the heroic annual journeys made by over 450 bird species and the challenges they face along the way.
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Outro
I'm looking forward to doing more video stuff, but man—having to put on camera-appropriate clothes all the time? Not so much. The pandemic has spoiled me in that regard.
What have you been working on lately?
What's your keyhole composition look like these days?
How would you describe your online avatar?
Any big plans for the rest of 2022 (which is inexplicably almost over)?
I would love to hear from you if you've got a spare moment to say hello and tell me something about yourself. You can reach me by replying to this newsletter or by writing to colin@exilelifestyle.com.
You can also communicate via the usual methods: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or Mexico City soundscape.
If you’re finding some value in what I’m doing here, consider supporting my work: Become an Understandary member / Become a Patron / Buy me a coffee