Abstract

The identity of individuals in a community, and in a “distributed” form of community, such as the social network, is formed/informed by relationships. The growing availability of information about these connections allows the quantification of social behaviors. Digital identities can be analyzed to identify – and spread – models, that is, generalizations created from the statistics of occurrences and patterns of words and colors, not just interpretations. The digital man is a “deluge of forms” more than a “material man” and the social networks design aims to in-form in order to control the actual and possible forms of a human being. Digital identities have been a proscenium of freedom and alternatives, but are now turning into stories written by the design of social networks and by the political and economic interests that drive such designs. This paper presents a reflection on these actualities, through an ideal conversation between Vilém Flusser and a few contemporary artists, sociologist, and philosophers.