Amateurs : How We Built Internet Culture and Why it Matters

The internet is no longer new, it is part of our everyday lives, and as a commonplace, we rarely take time to contemplate what we have made together. In these moments the old criteria are shattered: play becomes work, joy is monetised, private creativity is policed by the corporations. The platforms offer us a devil's bargain: they force us to pay through our own creativity, which is then repossessed and turned into value. The internet was first made by amateurs, but has gone on to make amateurs of us all: Toktok dancers, wikipedia editors, Reddit monitors; Insta stars and X-warriors. But when we are dependent on the platforms in order to create, can we call such production art anymore? Are we producers or users? Or perhaps just the used. In a series of studies on who owns a LolCats. The relationship between selfies and autofiction. The new commons of wiki,. Whether the look of the online world is old or new, or just a poor image. Whether you can copyright a loop. Why AI art without an...