The Aesthetics and Politics of the Online Self
Description
This volume investigates our dissonant and exuberant existences online. As social media users we know we're under surveillance, yet we continue to click, like, love and share ourselves online as if nothing was. So, how do we overcome the current online identity regime? Can we overthrow the rule of Narcissus and destroy the planetary middle class subject? In this catalogue of strategies, the reader will find stories on hacker groups, gaming platforms in the occupied territories, art objects, selfies, augmented reality, Gen Z autoethnographies, love and life. The authors of this anthology believe we cannot simply put vanity aside and a rational analysis of platform capitalism is not going to convince the youngs on TikTok nor liberate us from Zuckerbergian indentured servitude. Do we really need to wade through the subjective mud and 'learn more' about online aesthetics? The answer is yes.
Writing by Wendy Chun, Franco Berardi "BIFO", Julia Preisker, Katherine Behar, Rebecca Stein, Fabio Cristiano, Emilio Distretti, Natalie Bookchin, Ana Peraica, Mitra Azar, Donatella Della Ratta, Gabriella Coleman, Marco Deseriis, Alberto Micali, Daniel de Zeeuw, Giovanni Boccia Artieri, Jodi Dean.
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Persons
Donatella Della Ratta is Associate Professor of Communications and Media Studies at John Cabot University, Italy. She specializes in digital media and networked technologies with a focus on the Arab world.
Geert Lovink is Director of the Institute of Network Cultures at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands, and author of Sad by Design (2019).
Teresa Numerico is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Science at Roma Tre University, Italy. Her research interests lie at the intersection between philosophy, ethics and politics of technology with a focus on artificial intelligence.
Peter Sarram is Associate Professor of Communications and Media Studies at John Cabot University, Italy. His work revolves around questions of popular culture, social identities and technology.
Content
1. Introduction.- 2. Authentic Actions Within Network Algorithms.- 3. Can the Dividual Self Be Organized?.- 4. The Divided Subject - New Forms of the Online Self Regarding "Hate Speech".- 5. Personalities Without People.- 6. Art Entr'acte I.- 7. Militant Proximity: Digital Cameras and State Violence in Israel/Palestine.- 8. Observations on Potency and Self.- 9. Aesthetics by Algorithms: Sovereignty and Disappearance in Palestine.- 10. Selfies as Augmentation of Reality.- 11. Perspective Collectives of the Shared Self.- 12. Art Entr'acte II.- 13. Saving Anonymous.- 14. Anyone-subjectivity and the Grotesque Media Body: Alternative Configurations of the Online Self on the Deep Vernacular Web.- 15. Selfie Communism.- 16. Networked Participation: Selfie Protest and Ephemeral Public Spheres.- 17. Heretical Facial Machines, or the Ambivalence of Faciality in the Politics of Digital Dissent of Anonymous.- 18. Art Entr'acte III.
