On Web Navigation

Websites teach us how to read, to see, to search, to look for and, at the same time, how not to read, not to see, not to search and not to look for. There is a totally new way of being guided or forced or coerced into orienting ourselves and as never before ways of navigating are established which reach far beyond our use of phones, computers, pads and gadgets. If one does not understand the codes or if one tries to communicate something outside the current codes of navigation, there is very little chance to be noticed, seen, heard, or read. But this has perhaps always been like that. Being funneled into a flow or stream or a code of conduct takes place with increasing speed and the permanent and extremely quick change of it might even be outside the control of those, who are creating it. There seems to be something inherent in the technology itself, which governs us much more than we are aware of. It governs, as said above, the creator of it as much as the consumer. How to manage to use this technology without being totally governed by its constantly developing revolutions, demands and ways of organising “understanding”, might be a question which is already obsolete at the moment it is posed. “You cannot push the river”, or can we? What makes it even more complicated that is the fact that this technology can be and in many cases is extremely helpful; provided it is it “revolutionary” potential which is fully exploited. (Interestingly, it was Walter Benjamin who, more than 60 years ago, formulated similar ideas when confronted with the new medium of film and movie production.)