No longer a digital revolution

post-digital explorations

In this post-digital age, digital technology is no longer a revolutionary phenomenon but a normal part of everyday life.
Alessandro Ludovico, 2012

‘Post-digital’ neither recognizes the distinction between ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, nor ideological affirmation of the one or the other. It merges ‘old’ and ‘new’, often applying network cultural experimentation to analog technologies which it re-investigates and re-uses.
Florian Cramer, 2014

Exhibition of projects by the students of the Master in Communication Design and New Media, FBAUL 2014-2015

Under the motto “post-digital explorations”, the Master in Communication Design and New Media seeks to challenge an uncritical understanding of the digital nature of media, arts and design, according to the statement by Negroponte (1998) that "the digital revolution is over”. At a time when (old) new media pervade contemporary culture and integrate our daily lives, their novelty status is constantly questioned and simultaneously reactivated through the creation of media with new properties.

According to this post-digital vision, the proposals gathered in this exhibition, and developed under the Project subject of the Master in Communication Design and New Media, constitute experimental approaches to communication upon a dilution of the split between old and new media. They explore the possibilities of communication through the renewed use of old media according to the operative possibilities of new media (Tweeting Antennas). They approach the reconfiguration of content collection, editing and production, or even of its reading process, according to the current possibilities for accessing, processing and disseminating information (Fronteiras e não-fronteiras, Reading as Writing, Suzca). They develop particular approaches to information visualization and its expressive potential as a strategy for revealing intangible content or submerse narratives (Visualizing Montage, Data.Me, 27x4). They focus on the playful and expressive dimension of interaction (Gestural Abstraction Interface) and on the exploration of its interfaces and acquired conventions (Navegação Inclusiva, Refuse Patterns Thnk Cfgrtions), while envisaging the possibilities of expanding physical space through virtual means or environments (Espacillimité, Diving into Z-axis).