Digital Folklore: A Conversation with Olia Lialina and Dragan Espenschied

How is folk culture defined in the digital age? This is the question that renowned artists Olia Lialina and Dragan Espenschied set out to answer in their new book, Digital Folklore (2010), an anthology that examines an emergent kind of amateur, popular art: the kind made by computer users. The artists write: “Users’ endeavors, like glittering star backgrounds, kittens, and rainbow gradients, are mostly derided as kitsch or in the most extreme cases, postulated as the end of culture itself. In fact this evolving vernacular, created by users for users, is the most important, beautiful and misunderstood language of new media.” At this talk, part of the monthly New Silent Series, Lialina and Espenschied will present their groundbreaking book, and their new definition of contemporary folk art.

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