I caught myself scrolling endlessly while waiting my turn for an appointment. Instead of clearing my head, as my intention was, I felt rather overwhelmed. What if we are not only consuming images, but they also consume us? What if our consumed attention surrenders our ability to imagine what is possible and desired?
What reproductions do we support by looking, liking, sharing, or choosing, simply because images frame what deserves attention, what looks desirable, normal, threatening or worth belonging to? Yes, I know, it is not only images; it is also language; But before we read the breaking news, we first come across the bright red color. Before we read the story, we encountered the image.
We participate in systems we may not even consciously endorse. What happens when images, desires, identities and systems of consumption begin to shape one another, and when the distinction between consumer and consumed gets blurred? Or worse, remains unseen?
Our capacity to envision, our agency and the futures we can create depend on the conditions of possibility nourished in and by our imagination. If our visuality regulates how we make sense of reality, then it also regulates what we can imagine as possible. The Future needs to be nostalgic. In this case, perhaps, we need to wonder if the kind of worlds, present and future, we imagine, are not but a mere reflection of the images that we allow awash our lives, especially when our attention and ‘defenses’ are not tuned. (image: Read Yassin, 2017, EMST)