The reflected self: Search for the real and its virtual findings

The first project was called “Eugene Gorny: (Re)construction of a virtual personality”(Gorny 2000) and was based on the results of ego surfing. Ego surfing is defined ‘scanning the net, databases, print media, etc. looking for references to one's own name’(Enzer 1994-2003). It is quite a common activity on the internet and I believe that most users have tried it at least once. ‘It is not a total waste of time as it might seem. In a while you discover that you are torn to pieces as Dionysus, and your name (as incarnation of your essence) is spread here and there in the Net. Thus, ego surfing is a search for one’s dismemberments’ (Gorny 1999).

However, such experience is often considered as something almost shameful – a kind of high-tech narcissism – and usually remains private. A few years ago, I tried to investigate opportunities for ego surfing as a means of self-knowledge. I gathered mentions of my name on the Russian net and assembled a collage out of them. The number of quotations was significant because I had been a public figure for some years and was mentioned quite often. I grouped material into ten sections such as description of appearance, character, professional activity, funny stories, dreams, and so forth, providing a link from each quotation to its original source. The resulting (hyper)text reached almost five thousand words and proved to be a very bizarre mixture of facts and perspectives. Later I defined it as ‘the assemblage of myself as a phantom object from the net reflections of my existence in the minds of others’ (Gorny 2000c).

It can be considered as an experiment that tried to answer at least two theoretical questions: first, to what extent the internet can be a valid source of knowledge about something or someone, and second, can the subject be described adequately ‘from the outside’, that is, objectively? I think that that the answer to both questions should be negative. The information found on the internet is usually considered fragmented, incomplete and biased. But if even it were not so, I feel doubtful that the mechanical accumulation of information can lead to any real knowledge or understanding, especially if we deal with such subject matter as subjectivity. Then, reflection on the results of ego surfing has revealed a tremendous gap between how I know myself and how am I known by others. It seems to refute claims of such approaches to personality as social constructivism and postmodernism that personality is essentially a sum of social or textual interactions. Such theories reduce the subject to its objectifications, ignoring the fact that consciousness is not an object. Personality as a subject of conscious experience is not reducible to the roles it plays or texts by which it is described. But what is actually that subject which is reflected as object? And if it is one, then why is it manifested objectively as many? Can you get the Moon if you put together the pieces of mirror where it is reflected? 

So what is the effect of ego surfing on self-knowledge? As I wrote elsewhere,

Searching for our ‘selves’ (both on- and off-line), we first and foremost look for evidence of self-existence. The motivation for such a search must be hidden in a kind of a fundamental doubt (knowledge?) meaning that actually there is no ego or ‘self’ at all. Nevertheless, the Net and mirrors, as well as many other things give way to prove to ourselves again and again that this truth is wrong. (Gorny 1999)

The file name of my collection of ego surfing results reflects the principal ambiguity of findings. It is “ego_net.html” and can be understood in opposite ways. “Ego” can be read both as a synonym for the self and as an abbreviation for my name. “Net” can be read in the sense of network or as Russian net meaning negation. The self (or myself) has been described as a distributed system and, at the same time, as something that does not exist. 

This ambiguity was reflected by some critics and interpreted in terms of self-dissolution in the network. Alma Pater discussed my work on the site of Teneta, a Russian online literature contest to which my text had been nominated: 

Here is the double-purpose weapon, a weapon of liberation, though still on trial. But already in operation. A fancy collage where, say, a poem to a girl about the ontology of names alternates for some reason with restaurant episodes, portrays a personality so many-sided that these sides become smoothed away by their multiplicity – and where Eugene Gorny is? He is dissolved in fact and fables. Out of namarupa [name and form – Sanskrit] only nama has remained – but does the name has ontology? An immature mind tied with passions to the peg of ego would imagine here a dossier on itself, and urge his empty host to go and search mentions of himself in search engines – how can it be that some Gorny exists more than I do? This hunger is insatiable, and he will need to store up this hay himself, to sow and mow, in sweat, with fiery eyes, to generate virtual boys and girls writing about themselves, and to have his picture taken with a pope, to paint pictures, play music and give interviews. But it would be better to examine closely Gorny’s portrait from the beginning: there is no him, as there is neither Leibov nor Lebedev [creative figures of Russian internet]. Mirrors, and the Net, and TENETA give way to prove to ourselves again and again that in fact there is no “self”.

But what is the actual relationship of the netted representation of myself weaved from other’s views, opinions and stories to my real self? I am inclined to think that, in the final analysis, this image relates not to the real me but rather to my golem – an artificial creature made up out of my words, deeds, and impressions I have produced to others. Representing me for others, it does a great deal of work for me while I can do something else or do nothing. To sustain it alive I need to feed it from time to time by giving it some of my energy through public activity. However, its main food is memory and the attention of the others who think of me, or have feelings about me, or dream me in their dreams. Every public figure has its golem. Politicians or pop stars breed and cherish their golems carefully and deliberately. Long periods of the host’s inactivity can lead to gradual debilitation and disintegration of its golem. If it becomes too strong, the golem can get out of hand and even turn against his creator. It is difficult to control and dangerous to meet face to face. The golem can help us to understand what we are, but to become identified with one’s own golem means to lose the chance for self-knowledge.