DIGITAL ADVANCED LESSON #1
§ The digital is, as of now, mediated & material by necessity. We encounter and interact with it solely through intermediaries inhabiting the non-digital world. §
§ The digital does not abide humans' limited notion of space + time, but can exist in multiple places at once; it does not abide by the laws of matter or energy, and can be both created and destroyed. §
§ In earlier lessons we have oversimplified in our urgency to have you understand and feel the ontology and power of the digital. There is a further division, not absolute, but noticeable – that between the native digital object (i.e., a 3D modeled tree, or an image created in software)
and the digitized object (a digital photograph of a waterfall, a scan of an object or document). §
§ Each of these engages differently with the constructural and the terrestrial realms, and we therefore engage between them differently. As you meditate on and experience the ontology of each type of being, its place will become more apparent to you. You will be better able to consider what a digitized being's role as representative and signifier entails. But for now we need simply remember, and Feel, that despite these various planes and interactions both the natively digital and the digitized object are fully real in and of themselves. §