Patrick Lichty on ‘Molecular’ Communal Media
Presentation by Patrick Lichty:
Community-driven online media like WIKIs create frameworks for anarchic models of media production. WIKI-based media creates grass roots community, social protocols, and delivery methods based on conceptual frames of the site’s mission. The scope of the Burning Man-like potential for cultural location of WIKI discourse ranges widely, from Wikipedia to Encyclopedia Dramatica. Also, WIKI communities set their bylaws, creating what Guattari might call “molecular”, or localized hegemonies. As WIKI-based media expands, what can we learn from the relocation of power structures from the institutional to the communal? Can cogent art or curatorial models arise from emergent communal media? This presentation addresses WIKI-based media production, including Wikipedia, and Encyclopedia Dramatica, and the emergence of molecular hegemonies within them. Also, art and “curatorial” sites like Wikipedia Art, 4chan.org, and the writer’s “Art in the Age of Dataflow” Wiki-based essay will consider the potential and evidence regarding communal media creation.
Watch the video:
Patrick Lichty (USA) Social Media, Cultural Scaffolds, and Molecular Hegemonies. Musings on Anarchic Media, WIKIs, and De-territ from network cultures on Vimeo.
