WE THE USERS - DIGITAL FOLKLORE Reader.

WE THE USERS - DIGITAL FOLKLORE Reader.

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DIGITAL FOLKLORE Reader, reviewed by Pau Waelder.

DIGITAL FOLKLORE Reader. Edited by Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied. Designed by Manuel Buerger. Contains essays and projects investigating many different facets of Digital Folklore: online amateur culture, DIY electronics, dirtstyle, typo-nihilism, memes, teapots, penis enlargement…

"Although we are being constantly told that this is the era of the user (or youser), as the TIME magazine Person of the Year cover in 2006 so triumphantly expressed and social networks try to remind us every day, the role of users is still underestimated, while their contributions are both labeled as "amateur" and absorbed into the structures provided by web 2.0 companies. In front of this, Olia Lialina and Dragan Espenschied advocate the importance of the contribution of user-generated content to contemporary culture by coining the term Digital Folklore: "Digital Folklore encompasses the customs, traditions and elements of visual, textual and audio culture that emerged from user's engagement with personal computer applications during the last decade of the 20th and the first decade of the 21st century". The term stems from the artistic work of Lialina and Espenschied over the last years, as well as their research in Interface Design at the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart, which has derived into an unorthodox and very interesting publication, halfway between the scholarly reader and the artist's book."

Pau Waelder Graduated in Art History at the University of Barcelona, has a Masters Diploma in Advanced Studies in History Science and Art Theory at the University of the Balearic Islands and is currently writing his PhD thesis in the field of art, science and technology. He has participated in international simposia such as the I International Conference on Arthur Danto and the End of Art, (CENDEAC, Murcia, 2003) and Gaming Realities, (Fournos, Atenas, 2006). He has written chapters for the books Gaming Realities. A challenge for digital culture (Athens: Fournos, 2006) and Extending Experiences. Structure, Analysis and Design of Game Player Experience (Rovaniemi: Lapland University Press, 2008), as well as the text Games of Pain: Pain as Haptic Stimulation in Computer-Game's Based Media Art, published in Leonardo Vol. 40, Issue 3 (MIT Press, 2007).

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