CON DIG PRO; DIG PRO CON; PRO CON DIG

Preface: Website, consumedigestproduce.us was produced in 2019 by Chinese-American designer and artist, Stefanie Tam (b. 1997) in conjunction with book, Consume Digest Produce: On the Nature of American Consumption/Digestion/Production of Information, and installation, “that-i.do/not_ think?I=know_what&I_do_not=know” (2019).

The digital space is inundated with information, advertisements, cookies, news articles, algorithmic based feeds, personal status updates, and dog videos; as it continues to grow and evolve at an unpredictable rate, concerns of privacy, misuse of personal data, exploitation and persuasion of political beliefs, and the unregulated access to and production of content have become increasingly urgent topics.

I find myself having more questions than answers (I do not have answers nor am I a proponent for explicit answers):

What would the world look like if Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Sundar Pichai—to name a few—knew what Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google would be today at the start of their companies? Would they still have chosen to pursue their paths?

The largest and most commonly visited websites are driven by capital. How, as a user, am I directly being influenced by the structural design of these websites? And how am I by those that aren’t driven by capital or an agenda?

How would the culture of consumption and production change if words such as “curiosity” and “innovation” rigidly held negative connotations? And if those such as “skepticism” and “caution” rigidly held positive connotations?

How would belief systems shift if information being consumed was not algorithmically driven nor biased?

Where quick-to-develop online communities flourish from shared values and beliefs, what acts as a separation of belief and truth?

Where the ability to consume, digest, and produce (via internet) is uncontrolled and exponentially quick to evolve, is there a way to more actively form the space we occupy as the space simultaneously forms us?

What incites change? Is there a way to detect when change is necessary and/or self indulgent and /or hypocritical?

What purpose does asking these questions have? I'm not entirely sure, but I have many. I suggest you ask some too.

Through the lens of the words, “CONSUME”, “DIGEST”, and “PRODUCE”, I view the nature of human interaction with today's physical and digital space. This process is to gain a better understanding of confusion, multiplicity, and contradiction as opposed to arriving at explicit explanations as to why things are the way they are.

Over the course of this website, I collect 1) quotations from proponents and opponents of today's digital production culture and statistics of media consumption, digestion, and production 2) figures of data visualization about media consumption, digestion, and production, and 3) the images used as learning reinforcement for peoples' online assertions about digital consumption, digestion, and production. The following list includes some helpful guidelines and loose rules to assist the user in navigating and engaging with the content that follows.

As an attempt to highlight the inundation of information of a 2019 digital space, the insidious effects of semiocapitalism, and the seemingly futile nature of the producer's search for truth and meaning, I simultaneously archive digital artifacts of our time for future reference. With “maximum effort, [and] minimal results”, I share my exploration of the digital unknown through exhaustive data collection, questioning, curiosity, contradiction, confusion, and admiration for the absurd.