Employee of the month

[imomus]

Thogerson Hoy, bank official. "People are strange when you're a stranger," sang Jim Morrison. They're even stranger when you're scrolling around a 1051x1557 pixel employee photograph on a corporate website.


Michael Farrah, head of printers, peripherals, AV and displays. He's the head of peripherals, and this is the periphery of his head. I am in a lunar lander, slowly descending towards its surface. Scroll right! Scroll left! Survey the terrain! Shall I plant a national flag here, or a corporate logo?


Barry Atkinson, head of SMB sales. He's sideways. You approach him from the left across what looks like a blue-and-white checked tablecloth, then discover that his face is brown. Everyone in a suit and tie is a pragmatist and a puritan. Click the picture to explore!


Sarah Percy, head of marketing. Hyper-realism, Neue Sachlichkeit, the images they showed on Manhattan Cable TV after 9/11. The employee as missing person, the employee as dead person, the employee photograph as uncanny memorial, the smile fixed and frozen, grotesque and poignant in the newspaper. I've never had a job. I've never had to die for the company.


Jonathan Schwartz, unspecified computer executive. Hair is funny when you examine it close up, just like a word is strange when you repeat it one hundred times. The unheimlich, the uncanny, irony, detachment, alienation. Is it just a matter of getting too close or too far away? Is "normal" only normal at the appropriate viewing distance, under the appropriate lighting, from the appropriate angle? What a frail thing "normality" is, then!


Greg Stroud, unspecified computer executive. To the Japanese, we have a tall nose, round eyes, a red skin. Do we look like pigs? Are the pores of our skin too big? Do we have a distinctive smell, the smell of a foreigner? Can you smell us standing beside you on the train?


Øystein Thøgersen, bank employee. Rembrandt watched his own face decay in a mirror, painting it in a prolonged act of dispassionate scrutiny. Every photograph or mirror contains a bit of death alongside the pride, shame, embarrassment, surprise.


Vivi Lassen, bank employee. Do people frighten you? Do you have to master yourself when you speak to someone across a desk? Are old people more frightening than young people? Are people with jobs more frightening than people you meet randomly? Which is more scary, a stranger or a friend?


Michael R. Robertson, director, human resources. Have you heard of the photographer Thomas Ruff? Some of these employee pictures remind me of his work. What do the bodies of the disembodied look like? When someone has power, do I cease to see their body? Is it uncharitable to look closely at an employee's body? If you prick me, do I not bleed? I'm just looking, thanks.

Comments

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ha ha, yes, I'll admit that I found these astonishingly high resolution employee photos while googling for this image (http://www.shellworth.com/images/Pablo.jpg) of what I imagined Chris_B to look like, based on his Neomarxisme posts. I thought he would go ballistic when I posted the comment and the link, but he didn't seem to think it was too insulting. Which makes me think that there are two completely different languages running alongside each other, the rational-symbolic language where we all think we share the same terms and can defend our positions the way we would when we play chess, and the visual-associative language. The first is a language of universals, a rational language of thoughts, the second a language of specifics, an emotional language of textures and the feelings they evoke.

You know, it sounds cruel or dismissive, but I feel I've spent about 5 years on the internet arguing with people on the mistaken assumption that because we share a language we share a culture -- people who I probably wouldn't have made that assumption about if I'd seen them, and if they'd looked like Pablo in the photo above. Now, there's a good and bad side to this. The illusion of universality is a uniting one that draws me into debate with people I would otherwise hardly interact with. On the other hand, I'm very much a textural-emotional-aesthetic animal. I relate to the world based very much on how it looks, tastes, feels, and I trust my instincts. If something tastes bad, or someone is poorly presented, I veer away. I assume we can't share a worldview. This can sound harsh and snobby, and it does mean that communication might be limited to interaction with people who think the same way as you do, or whom you idealize successfully. It's an ongoing issue in my thinking, this, but I suspect my emotions will win in the end: texture will win over text, and instinct over reason, and form over content.

[(Anonymous)]

On the other hand, you seem to spend hours and hours of every day on the internet, which remains possibly the most text-heavy means of dialogue known to man!

[freesurfboards.livejournal.com]

intellectualism seems like a particular aesthetic anyway - not to mention that the internet is very visual.
even at something like maddox's website the pure text is a nice picture and before we notice the content, we notice the overall layout of the text.

[flyonawndshield.livejournal.com]

Yes, but under all formats are codes of text, so I think it all returns on itself in a way.

I think the internet is a poor way to judge one's character though, because text is a such a poor representation unless you do it well (as Momus does). It's very easy for even simple sentences to be miscommunicated in the heat of instant messaging, chat, or silly LJ comments. Sure, you CAN use emotes to provide some emotional input into the text, but those can make you look childish and dull.

The best defense against this is simply throwing your computer out the window, saving yourself from a poor substitute to genuine human contact.

[charleshatcher.livejournal.com]

This latter paragraph is very saddening indeed.

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

Momus as object of beauty. Does one argue with a statue?

Thank you for communicating this. I think your aims are often misread.

[mckibillo.livejournal.com]

wow, what a tortured defense for basically what's just an example of passive aggressive bullying.

interesting post though.

Well

[(Anonymous)]

1st: great post.
2nd: Chris_B is a known minor troll of weblog comments. He is apparently a very unhappy resident of Japan, of african-american origin I seem to remember.
3rd: I don't think it is possible for most of us to effectively communicate with everyone, be the hindrance time or prejudice. I think the key is to keep one's eyes and ears open and try not to project one's biases too too much. Some days it works better than others. Some days I cannot bear to speak with the dimwit, some days I relish it...