A Second Death of the Author or a Birth of the Text-User? Some remarks on writing and subjectivity in the digital era

Marcin Rychter
(Department of the Philosophy of Culture, Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw)

Abstract:
In the late 20th century many (e.g. Marshall McLuhan, Vilém Flusser, and Ray Kurzweil) prophesied the end of the book and its transformation into something better suited to digital media. These expectations do not seem to have come to fruition, since the quantity of books and articles being published grows exponentially. On the other hand, most of them have their digital editions and more often than not these are the ones that get the most attention from readers. Text, reading and writing did not vanish, but they moved into the realm of the digital and went online for good. The first part of the presentation, will focus on some of the consequences of that process for the ontology of the text itself – such as its growing non-linearity, transience, hybrid structure and the minimized distance separating the reader from the author. Then, it will inquire about the model of subjectivity that is embedded in this new digital culture of reading. The previous, pre-digital figure of the author/reader was presented in a powerful manner by Descartes and – in a more ironic way – by Cervantes. It was an elevated figure of an autonomous, self-sufficient, rational subject, which was somehow detached from the world or even juxtaposed to it. By no means does this figure still reflect the experience of digital text culture. A contemporary writer/reader is no longer “outside,” but “in-the-very-middle” of things and other text-users. He or she does not need to prove self-sufficient anymore, since there is plenty of procedures ready to help with the work to be done. What is even stranger, the contemporary writer/reader does not even need to be human. Can we find a new cultural model of subjectivity in this new, digital culture of writing or is it better to described it within postmodern frameworks?

Marcin Rychter is a philosopher, translator, and Assistant Professor at the Department of the Philosophy of Culture, Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw. He is also the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture (www.eidos.uw.edu.pl). He has translated the works by authors such as Alfred North Whitehead, D. H. Lawrence, Jonathan Lear, Graham Harman, Ray Brassier, W. K. C. Guthrie, Simon Armitage, and many others. His main interests are philosophy of culture, philosophy of contemporary music, philosophy of technology, new trends in continental philosophy and contemporary literature.