Re-Materializing the World in the Digital Age

     A concept that I found quite intriguing and wanted to take further was how the technocratic paradigm is found within the digital world. 

The digital world has allowed for the technocratic paradigm to find its home, resulting in its most recent and pervasive expression to date. When looking at Andrea Spina’s analysis of “augmented reality” and the “online experience", it highlights the blurring lines between what is physical and what is virtual, which is considered to be a new challenge for integral ecology. If we begin to spend our lives living within these digital environments, which were created solely for our convenience in day-to-day life and tailored to our personal preferences, we begin to lose the ability to encounter the “otherness” of nature (Spina).

To some, nature can be seen as an inconvenient and messy aspect of our desires. However, in contrast to this messy incontinence, the digital paradigm is built on the logic of the algorithm, considered the ultimate technocratic tool. Alongside this, Spina suggests that, in an integral ecology for the digital age, it must involve a “re-materialization” of our daily lives (Spina). In this, we must now consciously step out of the “beautifully” curated digital world that has been made to our liking, to encounter the physical, real-life world in its raw, unmediated state. Pope Francis describes this as an essential need for the “ecological conversion,” more specifically, as it is only through direct encounter that we can move from just simply “using” the world, but to begin “listening” to it.

A question that arose for me during this research is, how are we able to practice re-materialization in a society that requires us to work from online to do school from online and have a social connection online?

However, from the beginning of the semester, I unintentionally began practicing digital fasting, which means for a few hours each day I try to focus on rematerialization. Some of these things might include on my daily walk, rather than listening to music. I turn it off, put it in my pocket and listen to the actual sounds of nature. Although not a big change to me, it's a small way to break the technocratic spell and try and remember that there is a world waiting for me to encounter it outside.


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