in/compatible aesthetics

Camille Paloque-Berges

Questioning the compatibility of tradition, heritage and the vernacular in Internet culture

I will ask if and how the notion of heritage, which tends toward institution, tradition, and monumentalization and univocal communication, and the notion of vernacular, which tends to everyday invention and dialogic communication are compatible in the context of  network culture. By focusing on examples of amateur archival initiatives comprising a series of network user behavior such as nostalgia, fan creativity or Internet art, I will try to answer by analyzing how Internet memory is not only passed along or even sometimes excavated by media archeologists but built into network communication devices that experiment and help develop the Internet itself. Hopefully it will help modify the way we envision heritage in a networked digital environment.