Event details

The Margate School / Gallery space

Doors open: 5.30pm

Talk begins: 6pm

Suggested donation: £5

Digital Ruins

In recent years, sociological and geographical writing has seen a rebirth of interest and appreciation of ruins, abandoned and neglected spaces of industrial modernity. 

This work has often emphasised the sensuousness and material nature of industrial ruins largely in terms of decay, disorder and blight, or the affective elements of these spaces through concepts such as ‘ghostliness’ and ‘haunting’. This paper is an investigation into ruins or abandoned spaces which do not have materiality or temporality: digital ruins. Existing in a kind of eternal present, such spaces do not decay, yet still demonstrate many of the experiences of what we understand to be ruin, abandonment or blight. 

This presentation is based on my autoethnographic research of three abandoned or nearly-abandoned virtual worlds (Twinity, Active Worlds, Blue Mars), and reconsiders the notions of ‘ruin’ within the increasingly important context of digital spaces, the utopian rhetorics which framed the development of these worlds, and situates the digital ruin within a wider critique of digital prosumerism and the digital economy. It also calls for a reframing of the internet more widely as a space not only of inevitable ‘progress’, but also as a space of endemic abandonment and waste.

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This event is hosted at The Margate School, 31-33 High Street, Margate, CT9 1DX.

Accessibility - There are accessible toilets and a baby changing station on the ground floor.

Getting here - We are located on Margate’s High Street in the old Woolworth’s building.

Bike - There are some public bike racks down the High Street and around Margate. We have some room to accommodate bikes, please ask us before chaining up! You can send us a message and any further questions here.

Train - We are a 10 min walk from Margate train station, just head along the seafront, enjoy the view, and visit the local businesses along the front.

Car - There is paid parking in Morrisons Carpark or along the seafront near Turner. You can find free parking in Cliftonville if you don’t mind a walk!

Cafe - Grab a tea or coffee before the event begins.

The Margate School is dog friendly - bring your pup along!