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Cubiclization of relationships amidst advancements in communicational technologies

a survey of contemporary forms of entertainment and exchange

By Arsh K.SPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
Top Story - February 2021
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As humans, we have an undeniable need - no, dare I say a necessity to share experience. The ways this has been done, ranging from word of mouth, to writing, post, electronic communication, have, in the course of their development accelerated the speed at which this representing of our stories to each other take place. And perhaps, via this mechanism, ushered in forms which may not have been studied formally such as literature or cinema.

Take for instance the letter - hardly anyone I know writes letters these days. However, there was a time in not even the too distant past where the exchange of letters between friends, family and lovers were a regular form of correspondence.

In an age where intimate exchanges often dwell on commentary regarding a TV serial which is watched by the friends or partners - the urgency of a comment takes on the form of an exclamation declaring a happening, redeeming expectation and speculation which might have been built over previous exchanges.

A phone call in the evening can very well serve as a means to catch up on the happenings of the day - which may already be recorded through numerous posts on social media channels, snaps, news feed updates, insta stories - which flood up with such material at a ridiculous rate.

To me, this does not seem unlike how a lot of young people today, and I do include myself in this bracket, tend to prefer episodic content limited to an hour or an hour and a half rather than sit down to a full length movie, even if it's the latest one by Scorsese.

This may have less to do with the availability of time than is commonly believed. Everyone has weekends, etc. and browsing memes on the cell phone can eat into hours your grandmother never knew existed.

I suppose that in a sense, the clamour to jump on the immediacy of a moment - to televise it, share its uniqueness, perhaps even its simultaneity with other similar happenings, like the first barks of a puppy for instance can often overwhelm the changes which require another duration to notice.

By this I do not simply mean the change in jobs, which may be major life events for some - yet be reduced to an update on Facebook or Linkedin to others. There are practices regarding the sharing of certain information in places and through means which the modern world has made a bit of a ritual of itself in a weird mockery of religious encounters. Think of meeting at a bar over a beer to discuss what's happening over the weekend football matches - and how easily such situations serve as analogies, if not allegories for what may be happening in one's romantic interests for instance.

It is evident how these scenes may be thought of as revolving around consumption, of football, food, relationships etc. Yet, there is a charting out which happens here, a comparison with the circumstances of another, and dare I say, at the expense of introducing a political word, discussions of strategy.

To bring a historical yet very contemporary comparison, meetings of such a nature, recall or perhaps re-enact the concept of the date, an amorous encounter between two besotted which was the rage in teen culture in a past which seems to have been a mere shutter click away. Yet today, these encounters appear outmoded with the predominance of instant dating/chatting websites, the prevalence of porn, and the necessities of making a living and earning money which defines the contours of the capitalist world.

Within this temporality as it were, what would a novella about lovers speak about? An expose of raunchy phone sex? A meeting which this may lead to? The struggle to hold on to something amidst changing professional, if not geographical circumstance? These are challenges which relationships do face.

It is a sad and paradoxical fact that, with the acceleration and augmentation of the ease and range of our communication, our network of relationships have tended to become increasingly localized, more the same.

This may seem counterintuitive, yet the way in which social media is used, as an echo chamber used to reinforce one's own views spills into the professional domain as easily as the calculation of how far your office is from your home.

In bringing in the collective dimension, community, if such a word can still be used to describe the kind of associations which emerge today, are often grounded on a shared profession, which is hardly ever hereditary, and often transient. I would not use the word class because it's range, or rather sense of consciousness extends no further than the contours of an office, which within these circumstances and in a post-collegiate universe becomes the meeting ground of strangers who can count on the familiarity of professional practices and financial stability in a locale which is close by and serves as a regular meeting point - office romances anyone?

Yet the staleness of such relationships, their ennui as it were, given the situational characteristics of their encounter and development may perhaps mark the nature of the relationship themselves. This is not the scene of historical or periodical romances for sure, yet in their own may may have stimulated the production of a new sub-genre.

Here, we enter speculative territory - yet the scene in porn movies where the boss has sex with the secretary while speaking to his wife, and the infinite variations of these are so wide spread that it is hard not to pretend as though it hasn't taken on the recognizability of a common cultural trope.

Within the formalizations presented above, what are the kinds of novelty, of resistance even, which nascent love finds in a world which would make a zoo if not a television show out of any encounter? Perhaps the love note, a post-card, a recap of the week presented in a letter. For these forms would yet be able to bear with them a happening in a temporality not entirely determined by the office space, even if they cannot remain untouched by it.

And after all, would not this address the very human need in us to transcend the circumstances in which we habitually find ourselves in; reaching to adventure? And is not love an encounter with the other that opens up a new window into the world? With these two questions I shall conclude my digressions and return to the cubicle, which in any case seems to be that unconscious space within which the modern crypt is located.

humanity
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