Block 2.1: Connectivities built by people and groups Lorenz Widmaier (Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus): Approaching born-digital memories.

1. Connectivities built by people and groups
Approaching born-digital memories
(working title)
Lorenz Widmaier | Cyprus University of Technology
Knowledge Hub 1 | Hamburg, 14. Dec. 2018 (presentation was edited later)

2. Photographs in the collection of
MoMA (New York)
25.000
− MoMA: Photography | MoMA (2018).
Online verfügbar unter https://www.moma.org/collection/about/curatorial-departments/photography, zuletzt aktualisiert am 21.11.2018, zuletzt geprüft am 27.11.2018.
− artnet News (2016): V&A to Hold Largest Photography Collection.
Online verfügbar unter https://news.artnet.com/art-world/largest-photography-collection-va-419726, zuletzt geprüft am 27.11.2018.
− Brandwatch: 121 Amazing Social Media Statistics and Facts.
Online verfügbar unter https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/amazing-social-media-statistics-and-facts/, zuletzt geprüft am 27.11.2018.
Photographs uploaded each day on
Instagram
Photographs shared each day
Online
95.000.000
(95 million)
3.200.000.000
(3.2 billion)
VS.

3. “[…] the Instagram photograph carries over into digital culture the form of
redundancy previously attributed to postcards which were,
‘meant to be thrown away after they are received’.”
Champion, Charlotte (2012): Instagram: je-suis-là? In: philosophy of photography 3 (1), S. 83–88. DOI: 10.1386/pop.3.1.83_7.

4. Are Instagram photos only ‘postcards’?
Recent studies about Instagram highlight the notion of
visual/photographic communication.
But if we compare Instagram photographs with images stored within cultural heritage
databases like Europeana, we can discover similar aesthetics and themes.
The following three slides do not represent humanities in its deepest sobriety.

5. − Mother with Child by German illustrator and graphic artist Max Stern (1872 - 1943). Image date: circa 1900. Carl Simon Archive.
(de) Christmas - The Holy Night - https://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/2024909/photography_ProvidedCHO_United_Archives_p_01753892_jpg.html. (de) Carl Simon. United Archives - http://www.united-
archives.com/?34211794147082943904&EVENT=WEBSHOP_SEARCH&SEARCHMODE=NEW&SEARCHTXT1=01753892. In Copyright - http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
The image is cropped by the author of this presentation.
Please find the image for the comparison here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Be3rTNplCHf/
(It is not included in order to respect Copyright)
If we compare the photograph of Kylie Jenners baby, the most liked image on Instagram (until 2019), with the painting of Max Stern, which is stored in the
Carl Simon Archive, we can think about the differences, but also about the conformities of the two images.

6. Parisienne de Photographie (Europeana)
Gaston Paris
Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-1973), French director and his
Siamese cat, circa 1956.
Instagram
An image with the #catsandbooks (43.345 posts)
„This is Eva. She came in to enjoy a cappuccino, a book, and
kitty cuddles on this cold winter day. Perfection.”
Please find the image for the comparison here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BstiIHcnVgW/
(It is not included in order to respect Copyright)
Its impossible to talk about Instagram without mentioning cats. However, photographs with cats were not invented by Instagram …
Please find the image for the comparison here:
http://bit.ly/catsphotographedbygaston
(It is not included in order to respect Copyright)

7. To understand the rise of photo sharing, to understand the flood of images, we need
to reflect upon the society and culture appeared with the genesis of the computer
and the world wide web.
At this point I want to deliver a verybrief insight into current theories of society.

8. Algorithmic Society
“[...] algorithms are deployed to make decisions, to sort and make meaningfully
visible the vast amount of data produced and available on the Web. […] They hint
at the fundamental question of who or what has power to set the conditions for
what can be seen and known […].”
Bucher, Taina (2018): If…then. Algorithmic power and politics. New York: Oxford University Press (Oxford studies in digital politics). p. 2-3

9. Data Society
“Who we are in this world is much more than a straightforward declaration of self-
identification or intended performance. Who we are […] is also a declaration by our
data as interpreted by algorithms.”
Cheney-Lippold, John (2017): We are data. Algorithms and the making of our digital selves. New York: New York University Press.

10. Networked Society
“Yes, our societies are superconnected, and so are we—never in human history
have so many been connected to so many others, in so many ways, with such wide-
ranging social implications.”
Chayko, Mary (2017): Superconnected. The Internet, digital media, and techno-social life. Los Angeles: SAGE.

11. Facebook Society
The central characteristic of the Facebook-Society
is the vanishing present and the loss of
reflexive perception of the self and of the world.
See: Simanowski, Roberto (2016): Facebook-Gesellschaft. 1. Aufl. s.l.: Matthes Seitz Berlin Verlag. p. 15

12. Why do people
share photographs?

13. My research is about the everyday or cultural photo sharing.
For Instagram and Facebook, many studies argue that photo-sharing is
rather about communication than about memory.
Shared photographs are not about the past or the future, they are about the present:
„Here I am“
There is the notion of phatic photo-sharing, arguing that picture taking became
an event in itself.
Photography became a social rite.

14. But photo-sharing is also
about memory…

15. “To collect photographs is to collect the world.”
(Sontag)
“[…] like auto-ethnographers,
people are documenting and re-considering their lives.”
(Davies)
− Sontag, Susan (2005): On photography. 1st electronic ed. New York: Rosetta. p. 1
− Davies, Julia (2007): Display, Identity and the Everyday: Self-presentation through online image sharing. In: Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 28 (4), S. 549–564.
DOI: 10.1080/01596300701625305.

16. (Digital) Heritage/Memory Platforms
• Europeana
• Google Arts & Culture
• Museum websites
• WikiPedia
Mainly digitalized content!
And born-digital content?
• Instagram?
• Facebook?
• YouTube?
• Small/closed public communities?
• Unshared content?

17. How to deal with this
vast amount of digital heritage?

18. SELECTION
PRESERVATION
REUSE
ACCESS

19. Access
How can we access millions of images? Why should people contribute to digital heritage
archives?
Selection
Which social mechanisms decide what is seen as digital heritage? How to make use of
the vast amount of data? What can be forgotten?
Preservation
How can we preserve data which are currently stored on servers of private companies?
Re-use
How can we re-use the digital heritage?
For all of these tasks, participatory memory practices will play a crucial role, regarding
the large amounts of user generated content today.

20. Approaching born-digital memories
New strategies for memory institutions on
how to curate born-digital heritage
(working title)
To sum up, my PhD is about: