Sven Birkerts’ Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age opens with Virginia Woolf’s iconic statement “On or about December 1910… human character changed.” Birkerts is quick to note that most, including Virginia Woolf herself, know that change doesn’t usually work this way. It’s nice rhetoric—a good media soundbite, but it’s rare that we can pinpoint one specific moment and say that’s it! that’s when human nature changed.
Change is a process and an elusive one at that. As Birkerts describes his aim for the book “What I want to look at here is the idea of pervasive change, and the common perception of such change”, he also admits “I am trying to catch hold of something that is in many ways like one of those gases that are without color, odor, shape, or apparent substance, and are undetectable except by the way of the effects they produce.”
While change may be elusive, Birkerts seems to have little trouble noting the problems that recent changes in technology, particularly computer technologies, have caused (or perhaps more accurately the problems society has allowed these technologies to cause). Birkerts isn’t a kneejerk reactionary or a Luddite, but most things related to modern technologies do seem to make him anxious. For example, he’s concerned that the Internet doesn’t provide information — it provides data. He’s also worried that individual thought (or the I) is being lost and replaced with a “hive” mentality. Perhaps his largest concern, though, relates to imagination, which he believes “is under threat” and “shrinking faster than Honoré de Balzac’s ass’s skin.
Birkerts also has little trouble illustrating these problems and often does so in thoughtful, lyrical language. For a book on technology, it’s surprisingly personal.
For much of the book, Birkerts simply takes us along as he experiences a variety of technological and not so technological moments. In one chapter, he talks about his wide range of emotions after a link informs him of a friend’s death: “When I opened the e-mail and saw that there was no message, just a link, I clicked. And then all at once I was awake and trying to take in what I was reading. Seamus Heaney was dead. Seamus was dead.” In a chapter titled “I’ll take Hell in a Handbasket for five hundred, Alex”—he describes the anxiety he felt while watching a Jeopardy! challenge that featured the two all-time champions and a computer program named Watson.
Aside from Birkerts’ sense of humor, evident in chapter titles among other places, his honesty, even at the risk of looking foolish, elevates the book to a special place. As noted on the back cover, Birkerts has only recently and “reluctantly allowed a degree of everyday digital technology into his life”. One degree: Siri and GPS. We ride along as he attempts to harness these technological powers. He doesn’t get lost, but relates “Not one day after my night out with Siri, I opened the business section of the Boston Globe to read a story called ‘Google Now Is One Step Ahead,’ which had as its lead, its opening hook: ‘Does anybody still use Siri?’ I was completely blindsided.”
While Changing the Subject often feels like memoir, it isn’t just Birkerts’ personal reflections on technology, art, and imagination. He brings in many other voices as well, and examines the work of Marshall McLuhan, Jaron Lanier, Nicholas Carr, and Kevin Kelly.
Not surprisingly, since reading is an activity that generally requires imagination, Birkerts often focuses on the written word, particularly novels. In a chapter titled simply “André Kertész On Reading”, Birkerts’ thoughts on books, particularly print books, come through clearly when he notes “Is there anything more mysterious, and more suggestive, than the sight of an open book?… The looker is invited forward. The open book is an entry way…”
Questions are an important part of Changing the Subject. In this way, and in many other ways, Birkerts seems to have created a book that is not only informative, but that also models what he wants people to do: read, analyze, question, discuss, think. Birkerts has opinions — lots of them — and many of them he states quite firmly. Still, there’s an overall tone to the book that suggests Birkerts would be more than happy to sit and discuss and listen to opposing points of view.
Each chapter has something to offer, but most likely because all of the chapters were originally published as standalone articles, there is some repetition, particularly in the second half of the book. A true introduction might also have been helpful. While most of the chapters seem to relate back to ideas set forth in the first chapter, not all do. At times, this makes the book feel just a little unfocused. That said, the honesty, lyricism, and thoughtfulness of Changing the Subject make it a pleasure to read.