Through the women I follow, I’ve discovered and re-discovered a lot that captivates me and I use my boards as a means to consider this ephemera. A very small sampling of my notably female discoveries include Anne Brigman, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Jessica Tremp. Searching, collecting, and saving these images helps me streamline and pinpoint my fixations and obsessions. It gives them shape and tangible representation. I can watch my habits and trains of thought as they reveal my virtual (un)conscious. I return again and again to mull over these traces. They’re like the collages on my high school bedroom walls, something comforting, expressive and revealing about them. And there’s the crux of this cognitive dissonance: what am I saying about myself here? What’s the nature of this version of my identity and what do I hope to reveal with a stream of images not my own? What do these collections speak to, and how are our desires, tastes, and interests best manifested?

Let’s assume for a moment our usage is engaged, critical, and aware. Even then, it’s key our participation is the precursor to some artistic, productive, or dynamic offline action. At the very least we must interact with the format in a way that’s specific to us and isn’t merely a shopping list, our possessions speaking for who we are. There’s no way around the fact that the medium influences the way information is produced, received and interpreted. The form guides the content, and “pinning” reinforces certain cultural standards and directions. Who is served and who participates are relevant, potentially problematic factors. That pinners tend toward being white, and upper-ish-class, brings up a whole host of complex issues on voice, perspective, representation and relevance, just for starters. I frequently see the same image pinned over and over (supposedly the majority of images are gathered from within the site itself). The collective unconscious is represented on Pinterest in no uncertain terms and I often wish it was a lot weirder and deeper than it seems to be.

Found via Pinterest. — Image found via Pinterest via Gypsy Mess.

What is almost happening in certain subsets of Pinterest is the creation of a language, a collaborative, collective, cumulative sense of meaning that is perhaps transformative in ways we haven’t yet harnessed. Here is what we are looking at, and what we care about. It’s a constant sea of images hurtling and scrolling toward us, but they’re also coming from us, chosen by us, and how could that work in our favor? Because I want to stick around. I want to use Pinterest in a way that feeds my preoccupations, pastimes and intrigues. It feels worthwhile to meditate on what these preoccupations include, to search for them, and separate them from all the other million things I see every day. I can leave behind what doesn’t feel right, or is trying too hard to persuade me. Ultimately it’s about that balance, one that each pinner needs to strike for themselves as they navigate these strange, confusing, and inspiring spaces. There are perhaps not just two ways to use Pinterest, but countless variations on a spectrum. While I feel critical, what interests me is the potential and capacity for meaning, both individual and collective, that clearly exists. The problems rest perhaps in how deeply we live within our virtual identities, yet how cursory we are in our consideration of them and what they really mean for our living, breathing selves.

P.S. Here are a few of my favorite pinners!

-Psychic Siamese Dream

PinterestPinterest

The Consciousness of Pinterest