Fifteenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

In this paper, we argue how the underlying philosophy of digital media and the presence of artificial intelligence represents a world similar to the one posed by Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The undergraduate first-year class was born in 2004-2005 this past year. From our perspective, this is the generation born in the digital age, which, for our argument, we shall call “The Cave.” These individuals are unique to human history, for they are the first generation in the developed world to have no recollection of a world without smartphones and social media. Having been born during this time, their life is unequivocally linked to their “digital life,” which older generations still manage to separate, having had the experience of it before the dawn of smartphones and the popularization of social media. Our study is presented in black-and-white/grayscale, to reveal to the audience how the simple usage of switching all our screens to “grayscale” can serve as a solution to liberate us from the shadows, thereby accentuating more the colors of “real-life” outside “The Cave.” For Plato, “The Cave” represents the realm of unknowledge, a realm in which we are entrapped by mere appearance and incapable of seeing the thing-in-itself, to borrow Kant’s phrase. The digital age in which we inhabit is a world full of shadows. We call for this new imaginary to better see our world more clearly.