‘There is much confusion under the sun. Thus the situation is excellent.’ Which seems rather timely, as I venture back to Italy after a disastrous election and a pontifical renunciation having turned that traditionally reactionary and catholic country into what can be best described as an anarchist’s paradise: no Pope and no government in sight. Ah, if only they kept it on…
Anyway, the reason of my journey is quite unrelated to my political musings. The Fondazione Intercultura has invited me to facilitate a workshop during the international conference The Body and the Web – Tools of intercultural learning, to be held in Florence, from Feb 28th to March 2nd, 2013. Click on the picture for the overall program, or just scroll down this page for an english summary of my workshop.
Programme – Il Corpo e la Rete
Title : Online social structures and digital cultures
Date: March 1, 2013 – 9:00-11:00
Abstract: In the context of contemporary Internet culture, being ‘present’ online means developing a set of cultural strategies allowing ICT users to perform their bodily self and their sociability. From the simplest smiley to the most sophisticated 3D avatar – not to mention pictures, texts and personal descriptions circulating in social media – individuals aim to position themselves within increasingly more complex collective structures. The ‘presentation of self’ becomes a way of managing and increasing their social capital. This notion problematizes and frames from a theoretical point of view the behavior of Web users in local and global networks of social relations. It also helps appreciate how online presence is not merely, as Michel Foucault would have it, a ‘technology of the self’ – but an actual collective technology.