1 THE WILD WEST DAYS OF THE INTERNET: A DISSECTION OF DIGITAL CULTURE AND ITS PHYSICAL RESULTANTS
SELF-DIRECTED PROJECT
fall ‘23
The title page of the research’s corresponding bookletA collage of ads representing the constant and overlapping condition of public spheresFriends Network Diagram Advisor:
Mark Stanley
Memory, materialism, circumstance, and aesthetics play crucial roles in establishing an identity and making space. The trajectory of these four factors brings individuals and objects together through various means in both the digital and physical realms. The objects we interact with daily form relationships with us physically, socially, and emotionally. Breaking or losing your computer or car can be as frustrating as fighting with a friend. Considering the importance of materialism in a Western cultural context, it’s necessary to examine how space-making shifts from the physical to the digital and ultimately to a gray area between the two.
Preliminary slides made throughout the semester
List of curated pieces to match the workTimeline of key physio-digital events from 1995 - 2023Spring studio deliverable time chartInfluential artistsGlossary of important terminology
The Wild West days of the Internet [1995–2014] served as the perfect playground to study these agents. The Internet, once a lawless land where few to no regulations or corporate hands strayed, allowed the perfect storm of a young, democratic social space to develop. With a faster means of connecting online and newfound anonymity, users globally felt ephemeral freedom to post, play, discuss, and steal whatever they desired, primarily through a word-of-mouth system. Now, as the Internet has become more commonplace, different actors, such as corporate bodies, influencers, and altered anonymity, have produced a drastically different physio-digital environment from that which was present 28 years ago.
Through this research, two overarching questions are explored: 1) How did memory, materialism, circumstance, and aesthetics contribute to the development of digital space, and 2) how are digital spaces manifested in the physical, on the individual scale, and on the collective scale? This examination is not meant to identify any shortcomings in regards to human social inhabitance online but rather to examine the foundations and affairs that have morphed humans across physical, meta-physical, and digital territories.