thesis introduction

Abstract

Anti-capitalist work in liberating everyday information practise from the goals of monopolising tech companies is spread thin across various industry concerns and disciplinary hegemonies. By centering collectivist ideals I appeal to the digital commons and decentralised web to enable particular practises of hyperconnected personal curation that have potential for collectivist resistance. Through analysis of public assemblages of fragmented experience on existing web platforms (Pinterest and Are.na) I’ll discuss the benefits that decentralised models and the semantic web could have on extra-institutional knowledge-work. This thesis is also a meta-work of self-exemplification. As a living provotype, this thesis is presented within a personal website indexing cues of my own self-transcendence through collectivist pedagogy and experimental tech.

Important Definitions

mnemotechniques and mnemotechnologies: tools, methods, platforms and structures for storing and retrieving information, loosely separated by their reliance on a singular medium or ‘attentive mode’ (Smolicki, 2017; Stiegler, 2010) (1) (2)
para-archival: deployment of capitalist tech for archival practises that “do not explicitly counteract, but evolve alongside or parallel to the proprietary power” (Smolicki, 2017) - “a second level interwoven into the first (de Certeau, 1984, p.31, cited by Smolicki, 2017, pp.20)
collectivist/collectivism: used here as a deliberately general term, referring to leftist politics that emphasise communal care and ownership; not necessarily in neglect of the individual. I intend particularly to encompass anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, intersectional feminist, decolonialist and environmental movements. The closest specific political connotation I’m making is with communalism and anarcho-communism in the tradition of Bookchin and Kropotkin.
semantic web: originally coined by Berners-Lee to describe a web of connected data that is machine-readable. In modern developments and in my usage, it should also be maximally human-readable.
semantic links: a connection between two entities with meaning attached - a labelled relation such as ‘X is the parent of Y’ rather than simply ‘X is related to Y’. Often used in in the context of the semantic web to refer to these semantic triples or statements described by a language such as RDF
RDF (Resource Description Framework): a language for structured description of arbitrary entities
Solid: a software ecosystem implementing decentralised web/semantic web concepts

Structure of this thesis

First I’ll discuss how fragments of online content can be instrumental and affective, through discussion of the multi-modal blogging platform Tumblr. I’ll show how the assemblage, dissemination and recombination of fragments leaves room for reflexive curatorial work that promotes self-actualisation and self-transcendence. I’ll go on to discuss external memory and the determination of mnemotechniques vs mnemotechnologies through active use of agency, singular perspective and intersubjectivity.

Later, I’ll explore some pertinent findings from my analysis of resistive assemblages on Pinterest and Are.na. I’ll discuss my analysis of Are.na users’ view of the platform. Through insights from literature and further analyses I’ll describe some major infrastructural elements necessary for enabling intersubjectivity, connectivity and reflexive curation of digital fragments.

Lastly, I’ll discuss the implementation of such structures in Solid. I’ve proposed data formats, tools and components that could combine to afford benefits of the decentralised and semantic web to an Are.na-like platform. I’ve proposed further work to complete this realisation and to expand this intersection of fields further.