Construction of the subject in the age of social networks: memes, idiots and hackers

Using the work of Guattari, Simondon and Bakhtin Olga Goryunova considered new ways of constructing of a subject and subjectivity.

Olga Goryunova

The Laboratory for Internet Studies (LINIS) at HSE in St. Petersburg, with the Center for New Media and Society, New Economic School, invited Olga Goryunova, associate professor at of Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the University of Warwick, UK to give an public lecture. She tried to explain how the construction of the subject is created based on the operation of computer systems and networks. 

Using the work of Guattari, Simondon and Bakhtin Olga Goryunova considered new ways of constructing of a subject and subjectivity.

‘Current methods for formation of subjects and objects of linguistic genre of any idea get aesthetic, performative and craft features - says Goryunova . - On the basis of memes and other examples we can determine which exactly subject a particular method applies to’.

According to the research, new cultural facilities (memes), conceptual characters (idiots), and forms of protest (Anonymus) today are technical and aesthetic processes of formation for new types of existence of the subject.

About the speaker :

Olga Goryunova

Olga Goryunova is also the director of the master's degree program Digital Media and Culture. In addition, she wrote a book ‘Art Platforms and Cultural Production on the Internet’ (Routledge, 2012).