Profiles: friendship in the digital age
Seminar: 30 July 2009

Profiles by Ilga Leimanis

The science, art and literature initiative e-t+t invites you to participate in a seminar about the influence of the virtual world on our relationships. PROFILES: FRIENDSHIP IN THE DIGITAL AGE will take place on 30 July at e-t+t on Auskela Street in Riga.

The seminar aims to investigate the explosion of technological mediation in our relationships with one another, the possibility of meaningful human interaction and the places it occurs. Where and how do we interact? In public, private, or virtual space?

The social networking website draugiem.lv founded in 2004, has grown to become one of the most popular sites in Latvia with 2,400,000 registered users. (The population of the entire country is only 2.2 million). The website plays an important part in the everyday life of Latvian internet users as a tool of communication.

This seminar PROFILES: FRIENDSHIP IN THE DIGITAL AGE aims to investigate this rich contemporary cultural discourse, focusing on friendship networks, networking and connectivity enabled by new technologies. The interdisciplinary speakers will discuss this theme from the perspectives of art, psychology, communications, sociology and anthropology.

The seminar PROFILES: FRIENDSHIP IN THE DIGITAL AGE is held in conjunction with artist Ilga Leimanis' solo exhibition PROFILES: FRIENDSHIP IN THE DIGITAL AGE on view at Gallery Istaba from 20 July - 6 September 2009. Inspired by the phenomena of on-line social networking, and draugiem.lv in particular, this series of small painted portraits of friends' friends are taken from their images posted on the site. "I was attracted by the photographs people choose for themselves online - funny, serious, sexy, quirky - I have been drawn to their rhetorical clarity, their earnestness and amateur-ness. I am also interested in the question of identity, and wonder how these characters on the screen read as a social portrait of my extended community."

Seminar participants include artist Ilga Leimanis, RIXC electronic art and media centre Director Rasa Šmite, social networking website draugiem.lv Creative Director Guntars Meluškāns, Latvia University Pshychology Research Laboratory Director Ivars Austers and student researchers: Kaspars Vīgulis (LU), Iveta Sondore (RSU), Nauris Grass (LU) and Jānis Buholcs (LU).


This seminar is supported by draugiem.lv, satori.lv, and H2E.


PROFILES PROGRAMME

11.00 - 11.10 Welcome and introduction
                      Anda Kļaviņa, e-t+t project manager

11.10 - 13.00 Seminar Part 1
                      Profiles: Friendship in the Digital Age
                      Ilga Leimanis (artist)

                      Digital Network Communities
                      Rasa Šmite (RIXC)

                      Online Youth Networking

                      Kaspars Vīgulis (LU)


                      The Social Networking Effect: United against                       Isolation
                      Jānis Buholcs (LU)

13.00 - 13.30 Lunch Break

13.30 - 15.00 Seminar Part 2
                      Draugiem.lv: Profiles from the User's Perspective
                      Guntars Meluškāns, draugiem.lv Creative Director

                      Playing with Identity: Reality or Mischief?
                      Ivars Austers (LU professor)

                      Computer Games and Virtual Society
                      Nauris Grass (LU)

                      About Marionettes, not Puppeteers
                      Iveta Sondore (RSU)

15.00 - 15.30 Concluding Discussion