vilma

EN LT

2004-05-10	Valentinas : digest

Keywords: Memory, amnesia, generation of “screenagers”, search engine, techno nomads When I started I had an idea (as our task was to define VILMA’s character or the parameters for that character) to look for it on the internet as I always do (and find this action paradigmatic in our ‘screenager’s’ society). I had a very simple idea that it would be quite useful and quite interesting to find some parameters that are the most popular (like gender, location, other social parameters)in the WWW (let’s say, by using Google search engine). When I did this, I found quite unexpected results, and I knew that all these results differed from what the other person brought. The search results (internet sites, data bases etc.) have something specific and something very local. Most of them are made by amateurs themselves, who are not professional in doing internet sites, and you can find very personal information (color of eyes, zodiac signs, these kinds of things, etc.) in these sites as well. When you are doing the search, you can see an image of 10 to 20 search results in one page, so you can choose one from all of them or check the view of all of them at once. It is very ordinary and common, but somehow it makes you think how easily you can locate, cognize some very specific, informal or personal information about things, phenomenons you never would meet in nonvirtual world. And I liked the fact that these searches bring results that are superficial, commercial, local (even provincial), have tight links with POP culture. They are not self critical or sophisticated. My proposition was to do a kind of algorithm. We would present the project’s keywords in Lithuanian and English, so whoever searches the VILMA site can choose the keyword they want to check as a reflection of VILMA project, and could get a very shallow and sketchy, but characteristic output. I do not say an answer. Another very interesting WWW aspect is that it is changing, transforming every second. It is impossible somehow to register, or to conceive the WWW. If in the nature someone finds a new plant or animal they register it interesting internet sites are disappearing. VILMA character’s search in search engines is one of the basic texts or actions I have chosen. If you will look for VILMA character in Google search engine you will find VILMA software codes, actresses, some plays (“Hungarian Rhapsody” for example). Or you can find some sites in languages I don’t understand. If you will search in Lithuanian (VILMA, charakteris) you could find girls’ called Vilmas personal characterics, photos. One can answer that her character depends on her mood. A guy has a girlfriend called VILMA, and he says, “VILMA is fine, I don’t find anything bad to say about her - my girlfriend has blue eyes”. In friendship sites, where they describe themselves, you can see teenagers named VILMA who are looking for friends, boyfriends, etc. The VILMA search engine algorithm idea was a starting point to look for other texts. One of them was an interview with Peter Wippermann, “Tomorrows consumer – techno nomads”. He is analyzing, criticizing contemporary “screenagers” culture. He describes how computers, new media and internet really influence our world and the world of the youth by citing the fact that 80 percent of our consciousness is fixed by the time we are four years old. P.Wippermann tries to analyze the contemporary culture, the MTV, computer games, media sites. The young generation who grows up on new conditions has definitely different outlook to compare to last generation’s. The intentions to specify those changes in perception of reality which is more and more replaced by “screens” and virtuality are the main reasons why this text have been chosen. And the third text is written by Jalal Toufic, “One cannot go back to another side of a point of no return even in memory” from “(Vampires), An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film”. This text deals with memory, amnesia. People who see something from other spaces, from a virtual reality, change the notion of the reality and the notion of themselves and this notion is transformed irretrievably. In our age of medias and information it is impossible to distinct the hierarchy of information, so the process of memorizing what is important becomes the process of forgetting what is not important. The WWW is perfect example of chaotic, forgetful and undirected storing of information. The information, junk, promotions, undesirable sites in WWW evoke amnesia, which produces a discontinuous forgetfulness, whenever a surprise happens. But, in the virtual world of always changing endless informational storage engines, can anything be a surprise?