Error 404: file not found. Esperienza, memoria e sensibilità riconfigurate da dati e software

Abstract

In the postmodern era, our life is intimately connected to our digital signs. Modern human beings are disconnected from nature (Caronia 2008) because they are corrupted by technology. As Rodotà states, each of us is a digital person reduced to a bunch of information (Rodotà 2014). We are ‘inforg’ (Floridi 2012), that is informational and interconnected organisms interacting in a scenario which is boosted by the recording of data. Databases do not only record information but also memories, which are shaped by our own psyche, our ability to remember (Ferraris 2009). As a consequence, data create the soul of humankind. Therefore, it is necessary to reflect on the emotional perspective that connects these specular entities, whose physical and cyber dimension are closely related to each other. We store information in our virtual memories (such as platforms, clouds, and other devices) and then we entirely rely on them. However, information may get lost: for example, the ‘Error 404 message’ means that our data are no longer accessible. Moreover, we cannot deny our connection with digital signs. On the contrary, postmodern identities are nourished by the information they generate. The more they assimilate data, the more they embody them. According to Accotto, the cognitive processing is no longer directly related to human senses but to a mechanic process of mediation or, rather, to data and software (Accotto 2017). Thus, any physical experience is now replaced or intensified by intangible experience. Electronic reproducibility, with the merging of organic and non-organic elements (Attimonelli 2018), not ony generates a new relationship between human beings and technology, but it also reconstructs Benjamin’s (1936) concept of ‘hic et nunc’.