Bryan Applehard in his book ‘The Brain is Wider then the Sky’, further explores the twist that reality is ‘presented’ to me – based on the history of my preferences, my search habits. He describes an example of two people searching ‘on Egypt’ at exactly the same point in time; one gets a series of ‘search’ results which prioritise (in the hierarchy of ranking) holidays on the Red Sea; and the other gets a series of results which prioritise the Arab Spring and the fall of Mubarek. These different results, themselves the result of each of their two different search histories. This seems such an interesting phenomenon to me – some of the implications of which are clear; some more associative. This type of intimate experience is one
- where what is new is shaped to become a version of what I am used to; this is what ‘search’ has come to mean. So, my exploration of the world – the whole world of information as Google’s ambitions would have it – becomes a version of what is familiar, under which I am satisfied in slightly different ways with what I am seeking to move beyond – hence the impulse to search.
- in which in the very experience of relating, I am disclosing more than I realise I am. So, the consequences of my involvement are not known to me as fully as they are revealed to the ‘other’.
- where the relationship is constantly itself ‘in-formation’, being made through the inter-action.
Both Daniel Soar and Bryan Appleyard (and other commentators) seem to me to be developing lines of inquiry and a critique of a type of organising where the experience of the product or the service by the user is part of the ‘stuff’ of the organisation; as if the means of production were what were constantly being produced. The work being done is working out how to do the work.
Slingshot