Digital Culture Lecture Tour
Posted by tmemmott in Media Work, on October 10, 2015ONLINE AT: https://twitter.com/DigCultLectTour
Digital Culture Lecture Tour is a network performance enacted through images posted on Twitter. The performance took place April through July 2014.
Taking its primary cue from the Netprov work of Rob Wittig and Mark Marino, the work follows “Dr. T Memmott”, an avatar for myself on a fictional lecture tour with stops at unlikely venues such as diners, truckstops, roadside casinos, liquor stores, and laundromats. Lecture topics include: Sloths, Lemurs, Panda, Bunnies: The Taxonomy of Squee; Meme Culture and Alienation Capital; Welcome to the Animated Gif Economy; First World Problems.
As performance goes on, there is an increase in sophistication as to the venue, and signage – switching from portable signs with moveable letters to heavily designed billboards.
Overall, the piece provides commentary on social media, meme culture, advertising, and the positioning of academic research in a broader cultural context. During the performance 86 images were created using Photoshop. All of the signs are simulations. At its peak, the performance had over 600 followers.