Digital Anthropophagy and the Anthropophagic Re-Manifesto for the Digital Age

Symposium:

• ISEA2011: 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art
• More presentations from ISEA2011:  

• Art and Activism in Digital Age

• Digital Anthropophagy and the Anthropophagic Re-Manifesto for the Digital Age

• Vanessa Maia Ramos-Velasquez

Venue(s):

• Sabanci Center, Istanbul, Turkey

• I have written a thesis-essay about cultural cannibalism in the digital age as well as a manifesto-poem with a new take on the original “Manifesto Antropófago” written by the Brazilian modernist author Oswald de Andrade in 1928. His manifesto was an assertion of the unique Brazilian voice in the emerging modern time, away from clichés of colonialism, while unapologetically metabolizing outside references from the First World. My “Digital Anthropophagy” paper containing the “Anthropophagic Re-Manifesto for the Digital Age” seeks to update the anthropophagic practice of cultural cannibalism with regard to the digital age, where the virtual world is the new frontier, and everyone a possible colonizer.

  The term “Anthropophagy” comes from anthropos, “human being”, phagein, “to eat”). The main definitions are:

  1. Cannibalism, as the eating of human flesh by a human or humans
  2. Self-cannibalism, as the eating of one’s own flesh
  3. Eucharist, the ceremonial eating of the body of Jesus as wine and bread

  In my view, these forms of cannibalism have transmutated into a new form, which I would like to propose as Digital Anthropophagy, meaning:

  -The sum of the anthropophagic practices if done virtually, i.e., with the aid of computers, social networking platforms or other digital devices; or if executed in reality but facilitated digitally.
  -A new paradigm of input/output models generated via the internet.
  -A new practice of cultural consumption involving a technological mediation for input (both the feeding and the being fed), digestion, and output.

  The core subjects of my paper and manifesto are: colonization of thought and a new sphere of global influence, spread of ideas and the new phenomenology of humanistic interactions in the digital age, remix and recycle culture and “fair use” issues, inversion of the traditional vertical mass media methodology undermined by the advent of public as new producer of culture, and self-expression of the internetworked society as a bridge to immortality. Throughout, I examine the new acculturation processes in an era where all colonies have already proclaimed their independence and the virtual world is the new frontier to be conquered, putting into question once again: who is the cannibal?

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Category:

• Paper