Marina Turco
Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON), Utrecht University (Netherlands)
Marina Turco is affiliated researcher at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON) at Utrecht University. Since 1998, she has been working as an art historian, curator and writer in the field of new media and culture in Italy and in The Netherlands, publishing on the relationship between video art and television, live performance and narrative, and "intermedial performance". In her dissertation Dancing Images: Text, Technology and Cultural Participation in the "Communicative Dispositif" of VJing she explores the phenomenon of live video performances in the context of dance parties, from an anthropological as well as an aesthetic vantage point (drawing on Habermas' theory of communicative action). She is currently interested in how the "digital universe" gives form to specific structures of thought and action, particularly in relation with issues of privacy, control, and identity.
Articles of Marina Turco
Dancing Data. Come riportare lo spazio e il tempo nell'universo digitale
Flusser's philosophy of photography foresees how the introduction of digital apparatuses in all fields of human life will lead towards complete automation, and the programs running this technology will be progressively integrated within a large meta-program, a “super-black-box,” working independently from human intention. This analysis echoes Evgeny Morozov’s (2013) writings against the idolization of “The Internet,” the magic machine that is believed to offer a solution for every human problem. As Flusser predicted, and Morozov showed with contemporary examples of digital mediation, this super-black-box works in fact only towards the implementation of its own mechanisms of control. Flusser’s apocalyptic prediction, however, is counterbalanced by the idea that forms of “play against the apparatus” will offer mankind the means to regain freedom of action. This paper looks at forms of control and emancipation in the relations between club culture members and digital media. Social media changed the way clubbers share and represent their experiences, undermining presence in a culture that was traditionally based on intense bodily experiences. Therefore, new forms of playful interaction, such as forms of dance or fights between clubbers and the digital apparatus might emerge; new forms of DJ-ing that might lead towards a new understanding of presence and participation.