The Web Revival and the Folk Life of Virtual Worlds (Daniel Murray)

Описание: Presented at the 1st Symposium on Digital Art in Ireland
The Shtepps, University College Cork, June 2022

Abstract

Time within technology moves at a different rate to our reality; the root of my work is this temporal dissonance, that leaves 3D design from 30 years ago looking like the work of an ancient civilisation; as we surf the web we become the ghosts that haunt those ancient places, and as those places go on to define the virtual worlds of the future, we become the mythos of tomorrow.

Web design is the gateway to all digital art; it is the folk art of the internet; it is the point at which the internet becomes art, art becomes technology, and no clear boundary can or should exist between the two.

In 2016, while repeating my final year in computer science, I created the Lil Melon Kingdom and GifyPet; two old styled websites that were reactions against the modern web, with its sterile flat design and exhausting obsession with brands and monetisation. In doing so I had found myself at the epicentre of a new web revival happening in a community called Neocities, a reincarnation of the early web pioneer community of Geocities; filled with artists, writers, furries, programers, witches, geeks and all sorts of other misfits fleeing the doomed ship of social media. Web design for all its limitations, was the medium that opened my eyes to the possibilities of digital art.

Today I consider myself a digital artist, a computer scientist and a game designer. My work exists within the interplay and inseparability of these disciplines; I use 2D and 3D worlds as a means of exploring the mythos of technology; a mythos that is created from our memories, but mostly from the timeless memories of the world around us.

This talk will be a brief outline of my new work and current thinking, along with some context surrounding the wider web revival scene.

About the Speaker

DANIEL MURRAY is a Cork-based digital artist and computer scientist. His work focuses on the dream space of digital worlds; Exploring the emotion and mythology of our digital lives and associations with technology through nostalgia, video games and the web. Received a BSc in Computer Science from UCC in 2017 and an MSc in Games & Virtual Reality from the Glasgow School of Art in 2021, is a member of Sample-Studios in Cork, and can be found at melonking.net.

About the Symposium

The Symposium on Digital Art in Ireland is a joint initiative of Sample-Studios and the Department of Digital Humanities and Future Humanities Institute at University College Cork.

1st Symposium on Digital Art in Ireland (DigiArt22): Programme & Book of Abstracts
https://cora.ucc.ie/handle/10468/13144

For more on UCCDH, see:
https://www.ucc.ie/en/dah/

For more on Sample-Studios, see:
https://sample-studios.com/

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