A re-image

Is this a new phrase? Does it make sense? How? What does it mean? Today my computer was "re-imaged." It took twenty minutes. After that, all things were new. Well, redone. The machine was still ostensibly unchanged in appearance. Sure there were fewer icons on the desktop (Let's not start talking about "icons" or "desktops" - anyone who says computers aren't symbolic ... well that may be, but humans seem only able to describe these things in symbolical "point of reference" sorts of ways. Which is just fine, if we could only learn to see the whole computer "environment" as symbolic (We call it virtual, but I don't think we think symbolically enough about it.)), but otherwise it was the same black plastic machine, with a blue screen background.

But it had been re-imaged. Literally, I suppose, this means that somewhere in the ones and zeroes packaged on the school server, there was a collection of sequences that, when applied to my machine, or any computer machine in reasonable shape, would wipe it clean, and then reset it, like the pins on a bowling lane? Ready for another frame. The words are failing. I feel like I've done something concrete and irreparable, but the frames of reference are so malleable, so ethereal.

And yet there's evidence, for me, that is immediately obvious. Things work faster. It feels leaner, smarter. There is room. There is no data. There are fewer (much fewer) programs. So I set about re-stocking the shelves: my music file, my school files, my personal files. Then I refurbish the workings of the machine: Office software, anti-virus program, Design software, utility software, web browsers.

If I would try to reference this change - this re-working, this new "image" - to myself ten or so years ago, it would be some kind of challenge. The words we use to discuss the everyday goings on about our workspace machines and our recreation accoutrement have shifted and morphed right under our fingers. Can an icon be an icon anymore? What else can I re-image, if I can re-image my laptop?