Netizens as Fluxes and Hyper-Mobility in Creative Trajectories in My Art

Abstract

The human‟s desire to re-arrange, to revisit or re-tool its consummated past to suit the changing needs and aspirations of time and space coordinates is central to the notion of change. Change hence is a phenomenon that accords „culture‟ its dynamic value and all other elements of „culture‟ revolve around it. Ironically, change assumes a garb of an unchanging constant while it negotiates transformation of every other element in „culture.‟ While I do not want to engage in a profound exegesis of culture as a worn out concept in present-day academic discipline, I wish to suggest, quite simplistically, that culture may be seen as a product of the human‟s negotiation of the inexhaustible challenges imposed on it by nature‟s inadequacies. It is this attempt by humans to improvise alternatives to nature and erstwhile „culture‟ and their interfaces that is basically the progress ascribed to „culture.‟ Could one have said, in line with certain functionalists, that culture is a superstructure in which art and technology are inextricably hinged upon? In my submission here, I deploy the net (an abbreviation for the internet) as a cultural tool that has had great impact in the mobility of „culture.‟ It is this stark realization of the ‟net‟ phenomenon that inspires my work as an artist. This paper is an attempt, therefore, to navigate across the overarching influences of this contemporary phenomenon on my art.