Fossils and monsters: artistic communities and social networks in the Spanish State
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One of the most interesting aspects of artistic creation in Internet – and a differential aspect of this medium – is the aspect that is based on communication. This text will focus on the creation of social networks in Internet as an artistic resource and practicei. Its structure proposes a journey through the history of these communication platforms and analyses the resources that have shaped how they have evolved. Focusing on the initiatives that have arisen in the Spanish State, it spans these creations since the early days of the Internet (late 1994) to the present day.
In his essay Les mots y les choses (The Order of Things), Michel Foucault describes two ways of building natural history. This double concept of evolution represented by the figures of fossils (the idea of continuity, memory) and monsters (the idea of aberration as an element that allows for emergence) may be applied to the two main models of virtual communities: the first, in which the idea of the archive is highlighted (mailing lists, e-zines and directories) that proposes a continuity, a history that is linear, fixed and unchangeable; and the second (folksonomies, blogs and wikis), represented by the monsters, which is changeable, infinite and emerging. This second idea brings us to the so-called web 2.0, the construction of social knowledge archives and hierarchies that attempt to solve problems such as the information overload and its heterogeneity.
Two conclusions. First of all, the new models of communities place their bets on an Internet that is extended like a great collective mind, where its components, like the neurons in the brain, are governed by a non-hierarchical model, reinforcing their connections according to their interests, by means of interaction and communication. Secondly, the taxonomies and folksonomies must be considered to be complementary tools. The stabilising and destabilising forces are equally necessary because, to quote Foucault once again, while some maintain continuity (fossils), the others leave a chink open for evolution (monsters).