Word of the Day: Iconditioning (or iConditioning)
Today, I am going to perform an act of the much-reviled derivative neologising. That is, I am coining a term that is so obviously piggybacking on current trends that I feel a little bad about it. The new word is 'iconditioning', or perhaps 'iConditioning'.
Some people have used the latter term before, I should imagine, with the intent of labelling those who have bought into the late Steve Jobs's amazing technological 'reality distortion field' — epitomised by the names iMac, iPhone, iCloud, iPad, iWhatever.
In my case, I'm thinking of a recent book by Martin Kemp, Christ To Coke: How Image Becomes Icon. In that book, the author discusses how various process make images iconic in our minds — processes that are mediated by political power, traumatic event, and so on. The role of the ever-expanding and entrenching media (using whatever the latest infodump technology might be — clay tablets, tablet computing) is fairly strong here, but there are some other psychological quirks.
Somewhere out there, a mysterious psychopomp conveys the imagined concept to some sort of iconic afterlife, where it is beatified and joins the pantheon. When an image becomes an icon, it is very much like the process by which a dying hero is taken by the valkyrior to Valhalla. There, it will eat and drink its immortal way, whether obscure or not, until Ragnarok comes.
The whole process of becoming an icon, I say (or should that be 'iSay'?), should be called 'iconditioning'. We are conditioned by our information-environments to think of image as icon until it becomes true by some sort of apotheosis. And there iRest my case.
Some people have used the latter term before, I should imagine, with the intent of labelling those who have bought into the late Steve Jobs's amazing technological 'reality distortion field' — epitomised by the names iMac, iPhone, iCloud, iPad, iWhatever.
In my case, I'm thinking of a recent book by Martin Kemp, Christ To Coke: How Image Becomes Icon. In that book, the author discusses how various process make images iconic in our minds — processes that are mediated by political power, traumatic event, and so on. The role of the ever-expanding and entrenching media (using whatever the latest infodump technology might be — clay tablets, tablet computing) is fairly strong here, but there are some other psychological quirks.
Somewhere out there, a mysterious psychopomp conveys the imagined concept to some sort of iconic afterlife, where it is beatified and joins the pantheon. When an image becomes an icon, it is very much like the process by which a dying hero is taken by the valkyrior to Valhalla. There, it will eat and drink its immortal way, whether obscure or not, until Ragnarok comes.
The whole process of becoming an icon, I say (or should that be 'iSay'?), should be called 'iconditioning'. We are conditioned by our information-environments to think of image as icon until it becomes true by some sort of apotheosis. And there iRest my case.
Labels: Etymology, Iconography
etched with acid at 9:41:00 am
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