A group of volunteers are raising awareness about the lost art of letter writing by handwriting and snail mailing messages that people send them via e-mail. Those who request a snail mail letter can even request that the volunteer letter-writer includes a doodle along with the text. Volunteers and those who utilize the service talk about how hand written letters are more meaningful than messages sent through e-mail. They claim that hand written letters are more personal and represent time, care, and effort.
There are several interesting and related going on here. I will talk about each one in turn:
First, we can think of this as augmented letter writing. The messages are constructed in both digital and material form, and sent both electronically and physically across space to the receiver. The messages, constructed and received, are equally digital and physical.
Second, we see an inversion and augmentation of the mediation process. We often juxtapose non-electronic forms of communication against computer-mediated-communication. Here, we see computer based communications being mediated through human beings. The electronic form of the message is primary, mediated secondarily by human hands. Perhaps we can think of this as human-mediated-electronic-communication.
Third, we see in this Baudrillard’s simulacra, where the hand written letter, which signifies the time, care and effort of the sender, embodies instead only the symbol of this time care and effort. Actual time, care and effort on the part of the sender are subverted by human-mediated-electronic communication. The sender’s effort, time and care are displaced by the electronic media and the mediating human (i.e. the volunteer).
Finally, we might think of human-mediated-electronic communication (such as that seen in the “Snail Mail my Email” campaign) as a form of romanticized nostalgia for a more “authentic” past, facilitated (ironically) through contemporary technologies. It is hyperreal, as the romance and authenticity of the hand written letter is accomplished not by an unmediated effort of the mind, heart and hand, but through an extra step in the mediation process.
Comments 3
Replqwtil — August 20, 2011
This is a truly hilarious concept! I think you point out well how ludicrous it seems to claim that a handwritten letter is more sincere, or authentic, when the actualt writing was farmed out by the person who composed the message! Truly this strikes me as the pure reproduction of form.
I do appreciate the juxtaposition of a human mediated electronic process though. There is something humorous and meaningful in that process I think, but it is certainly not an increased authenticity on the part of the message. In some ways it strikes me. Reclaiming a lost role for humanity, that of automaton. A return to a time when the only IT machines were humans. But I doubt that return was the intention of this project. The reminder that the digital has taken over an infrastructural role from the human, and now a de-doubling of that original human role, under the purview of the very network which has taken it over.
Really, an astonishing concept. Very good post Jenny!
Jenny Davis — August 22, 2011
Great comments!!
To be fair, the purpose of the campaign is to draw attention to the lost art of letter writing. It is being used, however, as a means of sending more "authentic" communications. I do think it's really interesting that we necessarily look to the past for authenticity. I think it really speaks to the collective "worry" over technology induced isolation.