Étiquette : Visibility

The Horizon of Circulation

Publié le Publié dans Understanding Today's Culture (EN)Étiqueté , , , , , , , , , 6 commentaires

How Mediators Transform the Journey of Works, Ideas and Knowledge

Perspective spheres illustrating the horizon of circulation of works, ideas and knowledge through the cultural mediators of each era.

Read this article in French:
L’horizon de circulation

This article grew out of my observations of the Web since the mid-1990s. Here is what I have observed. Let us look at it together.

You connect to the Internet. You perform a search. A few seconds later, you discover a text written by someone living on the other side of the world. It is written in a language you do not understand. An artificial intelligence instantly translates it for you. You begin reading immediately.

This experience has become so commonplace that it now seems perfectly natural. Yet only a few decades ago, such an encounter with another culture would have been difficult, if not impossible, for most people.

This raises an obvious question: what made this encounter possible?

The most immediate answer is the Internet, search engines, digital platforms and, more recently, artificial intelligence. These technologies undeniably play an essential role. Every day, they make billions of publications accessible to millions of people around the world.

Yet, when we look more closely at this evolution, another reality emerges.

Search engines, digital platforms and artificial intelligence may simply be the latest representatives of a much older story: the story of mediators.

Throughout history, works, ideas and knowledge have circulated through intermediaries that transmit, preserve, organize and make them accessible. Depending on the period, these mediators have taken many different forms: storytellers, scribes, copyists, printers, booksellers, librarians, teachers, critics, journalists, publishers, search engines, digital platforms and artificial intelligence.

Technologies change. Mediators evolve. Yet the human need remains the same: to transmit works, ideas and knowledge to other people.

This reflection gradually emerged from my observations of the Web since the mid-1990s and from more than twenty years of publishing on the Internet. I have published artworks, texts, poems and essays online throughout that time. Over the years, I have witnessed the emergence of search engines, social media, digital platforms and, more recently, generative artificial intelligence. Each of these transformations has changed the way publications can be discovered and circulate.

Little by little, one question kept returning.

Why do some publications seem capable of travelling across the world while others remain almost invisible, even when they appear equally valuable?

Concepts such as visibility, discoverability, dissemination and transmission help explain part of this reality. More recently, digital marketing has popularized the notion of reach, which measures the number of people a publication can reach within a given context.

These concepts are essential. Yet, through years of observation, I gradually came to feel that they described only part of the phenomenon.

They explain how a publication becomes visible, how it can be found, or how many people it reaches. They account less well, however, for another dimension: the potential journey that a work, an idea or a piece of knowledge can undertake according to the mediators available in a given period. Yet it is precisely this evolution that makes new encounters possible between publications and human beings.

This observation gradually led me to propose another way of looking at the circulation of publications.

I call the horizon of circulation the potential extent of the journey that a work, an idea or a piece of knowledge can undertake, as made possible by the mediators of a given era.

How Mediators Transform the Horizon of Circulation

When we look at the history of cultural transmission from this perspective, a clear pattern gradually emerges.

Every era introduces new mediators that transform the ways works, ideas and knowledge can circulate.

For thousands of years, oral tradition was the primary means of transmission. Stories, songs, knowledge and traditions were passed on through the memory of individuals and communities. The horizon of circulation was therefore relatively limited. A work could survive for generations, but its journey depended entirely on the people who remembered and transmitted it.

The invention of writing profoundly changed this situation. Ideas no longer depended solely on human memory. They could be recorded, preserved and copied. Manuscripts enabled certain works to survive long after their authors had disappeared, even though their circulation remained limited by the slow work of copyists and the small number of available copies.

The printing press marked another major turning point. Producing hundreds, and later thousands, of copies of the same book became possible. Booksellers, publishers and libraries, in turn, expanded the possibilities for circulation. Works could now reach a much wider audience.

Over the following centuries, other mediators appeared: schools, universities, critics, newspapers, radio, television and numerous cultural institutions. Each contributed, in its own way, to the circulation of works, ideas and knowledge.

The arrival of the Web opened a new chapter.

For the first time in history, a single publication could become accessible almost instantly on a global scale. This does not mean that it will be read everywhere. It does, however, radically transform the possibilities of its journey.

Search engines, followed by digital platforms and, more recently, artificial intelligence, have extended this evolution. They create new possibilities for circulation and, in turn, reshape the ways works, ideas and knowledge can be discovered.

Looking back at this succession of transformations, one idea gradually becomes clear.

Each era changes more than the means of transmission. It also transforms the potential extent of the journey that a publication can undertake.

For this reason, I find it useful to speak of a horizon of circulation, rather than simply of dissemination.

The image of a horizon evokes a space of possibilities.

As new mediators emerge, this space expands, changes and is continually reconfigured. New paths become possible, while others gradually lose their importance.

New mediators do not necessarily replace the previous ones. Oral tradition still exists. Printed books continue to circulate. Libraries, teachers and cultural institutions remain essential actors in the transmission of knowledge and culture.

Each era therefore adds new mediators that gradually reshape the possibilities for the circulation of works, ideas and knowledge.

It is this continuous evolution — from the earliest oral traditions to today’s algorithmic mediators — that the concept of the horizon of circulation seeks to make visible.

A Horizon of Circulation Is Not a Guarantee of Dissemination

The concept of the horizon of circulation does not seek to predict the fate of a publication.

It simply describes the possibilities made available by the mediators of a given era.

To better understand this idea, let us consider the example of a poem.

A poem may be recited at a poetry reading before an audience of ten people. It may also be published in a printed collection distributed through a handful of bookstores, reaching a few hundred readers.

The same poem can also be published on the Web. It then becomes potentially accessible to readers all over the world. Search engines can index it. Digital platforms can recommend it. An artificial intelligence can quote it, summarize it or present it to someone who might otherwise never have encountered its author.

Yet the poem itself has not changed.

What has changed is not the work.

What has changed is the range of possible journeys it may take.

That is precisely what I call its horizon of circulation.

This does not mean that the poem will necessarily be read by thousands of people. It may remain almost invisible despite this much broader horizon.

A horizon of circulation does not describe what will actually happen.

It describes what has become possible.

This distinction allows us to differentiate the horizon of circulation, which represents the journey potentially made possible by the mediators of a given era, from effective circulation, that is, the journey a publication actually follows.

The two concepts are complementary. The horizon of circulation describes a space of possibilities, while effective circulation tells the actual story of a work, an idea or a piece of knowledge.

The concept of the horizon of circulation therefore does not replace notions such as visibility, discoverability, dissemination, transmission or reach.

It simply offers another way of observing the phenomenon.

Rather than focusing only on what a publication actually achieves, it invites us to consider the range of journeys that mediators make possible in a given period.

Mediators continue to evolve, and with them, the possibilities for the circulation of works, ideas and knowledge. Understanding this evolution may also help us better understand how global networked culture continues to change.

A broader horizon of circulation does not guarantee the long-term survival of a work, an idea or a piece of knowledge. It can, however, multiply the opportunities for it to be rediscovered, transmitted, translated, archived or brought back into circulation over time. A horizon of circulation does not ensure permanence, but it can help create the conditions that make it possible.

Every publication is a fragment of humanity. A trace entrusted to the mediators of its time and launched toward its own horizon of circulation.

Further Reading

This article is part of a broader reflection on the circulation of works, ideas and knowledge within global networked culture.

🟦 You Publish… But Are You Really Seen?

🟦 How Far Can a Publication Go?

🟦 Global Culture as a Moving Mosaic

🟦 Understanding Today’s Culture

🟦 Why Do Some Human Traces Endure Through Time?

© Gilles Vallée | Humanist Digital Artist, Poet, Sculptor

You Publish… But Are You Really Seen?

Publié le Publié dans Understanding Today's Culture (EN)Étiqueté , , , , , , , , 11 commentaires

A Reflection on Visibility, Discoverability and Human Encounter

Multilingual mosaic of culture and footprints crossing a network of digital content, illustrating the journey from human traces to visibility, discoverability, human encounter and transmission.

Read this article in French:
Vous publiez… mais êtes-vous vraiment vu ?

I publish often… but I don’t always have readers.

For more than twenty years, I have been publishing works, poems, essays, videos and images on the Web. Some of these publications find their readers. Others remain almost invisible. As I tried to understand why some publications are seen while others pass almost unnoticed, I believed I was simply reflecting on how the digital world works. I had no idea that this question would lead me much further.

When a Simple Question Becomes a Reflection

At first, my question was very simple.

Why do some publications seem to circulate naturally while others remain almost invisible despite all the care devoted to creating them?

Like many people who publish online, I first looked for answers in search engines, social media, algorithms and digital platforms. I learned how to improve the indexing of my content, how to work with metadata and how to increase its discoverability. Yet, despite all these efforts, the question continued to trouble me.

Little by little, three words kept returning in my reading and in my observations:

visibility
discoverability
encounter

Visibility allows content to exist in the public space.
Discoverability increases the chances that it can be found.
But one question remained.

What happens next?

What happens when a text, an image, a photograph, a video or an idea finally becomes visible? What happens when it can finally be discovered?

For a long time, I believed these two concepts were enough to explain how content circulates in the digital world. Yet something seemed to be missing. A publication may be visible. It may even be easy to find. That does not necessarily mean it truly reaches someone.

That is when the third word began to take on greater importance.

Encounter.

At first, I simply understood it as the moment when a publication reaches its reader. A fairly natural idea, after all. But the more I observed the paths taken by my own publications, the more this notion grew in significance.

What Drawings in Caves Taught Me

Then, one day, an image came to mind.

I was thinking about prehistoric drawings discovered in caves that had remained inaccessible for centuries, sometimes for millennia.

The drawings had always existed.
The rock walls had preserved their traces.
Yet, during all that time, no one was looking at them anymore.
Then, one day, explorers rediscover these drawings.
Archaeologists study them.
Researchers try to understand their meaning.
Visitors contemplate them with amazement.
Suddenly, these works become part of our shared history once again.

That was the moment something changed in the way I saw things.

I was no longer looking only at the digital world.

I began to wonder whether the three words that kept returning in my reflection might actually describe something far older.

The works left by our ancestors were there.
They had become visible once again.
They had been discovered.
Then they encountered other human beings.
And that encounter allowed them, thousands of years later, to begin transmitting something once again.

For a long time, this remained only an intuition.

A Book Forgotten for More Than Half a Century

Some time later, a personal experience confirmed this intuition.

I bought a second-hand poetry collection that had been published more than half a century earlier.

The copy was signed by the author. Someone had received it when the book was launched in 1965. More than half a century later, it had left its owner’s personal library and found its way onto the shelves of a second-hand bookstore.

When I opened it, I noticed something I had never expected.

The pages were still uncut, just as they had been on the day the book was published. I had to cut open the top of the pages in order to read the text. For more than half a century, this particular copy had remained on the shelves of a private library without anyone ever opening its pages. I was the first person to read it.

I stood there for a moment, looking at the book.

It had travelled through time.
It had changed owners.
It had been carefully preserved.
Yet, throughout all those years, its reading had remained suspended.
Only when someone finally opened its pages did this work begin to live again.

A few weeks later, I published excerpts from this collection on my website so that other readers could discover it. By sharing these texts, I became a transmitter in my turn. A work that had remained silent for more than fifty years could now encounter new readers and continue its transmission.

At that moment, I realized that this story closely resembled the prehistoric cave paintings I had been thinking about.

Transmission does not depend only on the existence of a trace.
It also depends on the possibility that, one day, someone will encounter it.
A work may be preserved for centuries.
A book may remain untouched for more than half a century.
A publication may remain accessible on the Web for years.
But sooner or later, another human being must encounter it.
That encounter is what sets transmission in motion again.

One Story That Crosses Time

I then asked myself a very simple question.
What if this story was not only about cave drawings or a forgotten book?
What if it described something much more universal?

Human beings have always left traces behind.

A handprint on a rock wall.
A petroglyph.
A manuscript.
A letter.
A book.
A photograph.
A work of art.
An archive.
Today, a publication on the Web.

The media change.
Technologies evolve.
But the gesture remains.

We are always trying to pass something on.

An idea.
Knowledge.
An emotion.
An experience.
A value.
A memory.
A part of ourselves.

For a long time, I viewed the digital world as a parallel universe.
Today, I see it instead as the continuation of a much older human story.
Search engines, digital platforms and artificial intelligence do not replace this process of transmission. They become its new mediators.

A Framework for Understanding Human Transmission

For several months now, three words have remained at the heart of my reflection.

Visibility

A trace must first exist in the world.
It must be visible.

Discoverability

It must then be possible to find it.
Sometimes immediately.
Sometimes centuries later.

Human Encounter

Finally comes the moment when that trace reaches another human being.
That is the moment when transmission begins again.
A work, an idea, a piece of knowledge, a value, a memory or a testimony begins to produce meaning once more.

The concepts of visibility and discoverability are now well established in libraries, archives, cultural discoverability and the digital world.

Throughout this reflection, I gradually came to feel that a third moment deserved more attention.

Human encounter.

Not encounter understood as engagement, audience retention or platform performance.
But the encounter between a trace and a human being.

The moment when a work, an idea, knowledge, a value, a memory or a testimony begins to produce meaning once again.

Little by little, one idea imposed itself upon me.

I now have the feeling that this framework offers another way of understanding many forms of human transmission.

Trace → Visibility → Discoverability → Human Encounter → Transmission

Human beings have always left traces behind.
The media change.
Technologies evolve.
The mediators change.
But this journey remains.

Each generation adds new traces to those left by the generations before it.
Today, ours travel through digital networks.
Some will disappear into oblivion.
Others will continue their journey for decades, perhaps much longer.
We never know which ones.

But one thing seems to run through all of human history.

Without human encounter, there are only traces. With it, there is transmission.

Diagram illustrating the path of human transmission: Trace → Visibility → Discoverability → Human Encounter → Transmission.

Other Articles Related to This Reflection

🟦 Publishing Is Not Enough. You Also Need to Be Seen (Micro-Essay #4)

🟦 How Far Can a Publication Go?

🟦 The Horizon of Circulation

🟦 You Are Already Leaving Traces in Global Culture (Micro-Essay #5)

🟦 Human Traces in Global Culture

🟦 Inhabiting the Network — A New Human Condition in Global Culture

🟦 Global Culture as a Moving Mosaic

🌍Thinking About Culture

I invite you to explore Understanding Today’s Culture, a series of micro-essays devoted to human experience, contemporary culture, and our networked world.

→ Explore the Understanding Today’s Culture series

© Gilles Vallée | Humanist Digital Artist, Poet, Sculptor