auden stieber @audenstieber - Tumblr Blog

i realize now that i must go off the grid. this is the only hope for humanity if we hope for it to be called humanity in the future. to be consumed by the beast of nature is a better future for me (and for you all). we must return to nature. we must return to our natural state. i think back on my experiences in nature (when i sat beneath the cherry tree) with increasing fondness, i long to go back there, but this time without a phone, without a social media identity (without my watch, without my glasses, without my pencils and books, without my apartment room, without my clothing). (without my friends?)

my body (if i have one) is pulled towards Arcadia

so here, i must leave you, readers and followers, and cease my existence online. only i will find if i truly exist in the real world—if i am not the imagination of someone, if i am truly the shared identity of some person. i will never be able to tell you what i find because i will either be reduced to nothingness (this is my digital suicide after all) or, if i do survive, i can never return here for i will be in Arcadia. i will be my natural human self. the angels will blow their trumpets for me as i stride back home, touching me and holding me with their long (un-prosthetic) arms made of pure human skin. their hands will carry no hidden micro-chips that relay their location to a parent, a spouse, a government and their fingers will have never brushed the keys that displace the self inside the glowing box. the keys that fuck the body up into ambiguous pulp with each key-stroke (like i am doing right now, in my final moments). the cherubs will dance for me beneath the canopies of cherry trees and i will rejoice with my fellow humans. i will be drunk on the life and wholeness they give me through approving stares and pats on the back.

when i arrive we will surely party—but then we must hasten to work! the fruits and vegetables will not grow themselves.

#anti-nature #nature #arcadia #cyborg #human #personal entry

Noah Kalina, 83257

#noah kalina #human #water #nature

"artifice, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press, December 2014. Web. 16 March 2015.

#artifice #oed #nature #human

i am afraid i only exist here, on the vague plane (or is it more like an expanse of tubes?) of the internet. i have lost my body. i can’t be sure i ever had one. i fear for my future, our future.

people say, “i wish i could delete my facebook.”

i say, “delete, leave.” i say, “we have lost the part that is important.”

this is not our home. humans cannot live on the internet (no matter how detached). something is lost the moment we project our minds into this undefined space—something is split, fractured, sacrificed. we lose the human, we lose the self. the internet is a dead place, it is a cold place. dead, ambiguous space. the internet is composed only of empty architecture—there is no cherry tree on a patch of grass to provide shade and beauty, there is no sun, even, to warm the concrete and provide the need for shade. (perhaps the problem is that we don’t feel the cold of the internet and, therefore, can’t grasp the folly of our ways.) the internet is no substitute for nature—it is all artifice. we created it. we have complete control. but to be human is to be out of control.

i’ve become a brand. i’ve become an imitation of a human (and a cheap one at that). a human cannot be truly recreated—humans are composed of stars, fate, magic, not lines of code. it is as if i am only the imagination of some living, physical person.

i feel: “contrived” (like seaweed or octopus “arms” arranged to look like an inkblot on a pebble beach. some see a person, some see the apocalypse.)

i long to really feel again.

#anti-nature #nature #facebook #personal entry #physical #fractured #human

kimlaughton

audenstieber

kim laughton

#nature #computer #internet

around me are the discarded layers of second and third skins. piles of monochromatic Nike and Adidas reaching for the ceiling of my room. one pile is so massive it is blocking most of my corner window. the outside light, filtered through the black and white fabrics, is coating my room with a dim, desaturated wash. i didn’t realize how much online shopping for sports clothing i had done until i freaked out and massed everything in front of all the light producing surfaces like a heroin addict.

i am naked except for a pair of skin tight Under Armor boxer briefs.

i took all my clothes off because i realized i couldn’t actually feel it on my body and i wasn’t leaving the house any time soon, so why bother. in fact, i can’t actually feel the boxer briefs but i’m leaving them on for the sake of decency (?). i can only feel the warm caress of internet breezes (pushed along by the occasional notification from facebook or tumblr or twitter). a little red globe in the corner of my facebook window gives me a jolt and i feel alive. it’s not physical, only mental—but it reminds me of physical feeling.

#brand #facebook #tumblr #twitter #anti-nature #numb #personal entry

With technology, the next evolutionary step always seems logical. That’s the danger. As it seduces us again and again, we relinquish a little part of ourselves. We rarely step back to reflect on whether, ultimately, we’re giving up more than we’re getting.

Shelley Podolny, New York Times

If An Algorithm Wrote This, How Would You Even Know? ~ and ~ Did A Human Or Computer Write This?

#artificial intelligence #technology #human

think: “i was a 90s kid” i was i was (was) waaaaaaaas what am i now? today? tomorrow? why am i talking this way (like a disaffected internet slug)? who does it appeal to? am i auden? is that my name, are these my arms, is it my stomach that is somersaulting so violently? i puke on my Nike Roshes sitting beside me and i notice a little piece of me (a fragment of my self) escape in my puke. i look at it and i say, “that is me…or a part of me, i don’t know.”

but did i do any of this? was i physically involved? i can’t be sure if i am both the physical auden and the digital auden or if i am only the latter. feel: “broken,” “scattered.”

i am worried i don’t exist.

#fragmented #identity #brand #personal entry

'I am not a brand!': building your personal and professional profile

"Many of us cringe at the thought of "personal branding". Mary Ellen Bates offers painless approaches to raising your profile and communicating the value you provide to your employer or clients in ways that are authentic and comfortable to even the most marketing-phobic."

#personal profile #brand #identity

YOU, the parent, are where the personal brand starts! give your baby an interesting name so employers can find them on google!

— auden stieber (@auden_stieber)

March 11, 2015

#brand #personal entry #twitter

Low Battery by Sasha Chaika

#brand #identity #publication #nike

feel ~empty~ right now. smoking a grape flavored swisher blunt in my room.

think: “i love my Nike Roshes” feel: “great”

think: “i am the child i once was, i am back to where i began” feel: “powerful”

think i’ll watch Spongebob Squarepants right now. i was a 90s kid.

#nike #brand #spongebob

Noah Kalina, 83257

#noah kalina #human #nature

saw ~4,000 ppl on their phones today. no faces. just apple logos on rectangles intersecting my line of vision to their faces. i shouted, “hey!” to them but they did not look up. i said, “just get google glass and look me in the face damnit!” but, again, nothing.

went home after all 4,000 of these encounters. i don’t remember anything else from the day.

a poem:

we met on tinder and u told me i smelled like cedar and the sea we went to the sea and we found a dead octopus and u said it looked like me and u tore each of its arms off and arranged them in a line in the sand and gave them all names but all the names were “auden”

i said, “why” and u ignored me u threw the octopus head into the sea u said, “who needs that?”

i said, “that part is important”

#phones #brand #google glass #poem #octopus #personal entry