Lee MacKinnon maintains that “if predigital (literary) forms of love are dominated by the calculation and the co-determination of the couple, postdigital, algorithmic systems of accelerating computability make love less, rather than more, deterministic, even though dating websites are keen to convince us otherwise”. In this workshop we explore love through the lens of predigital and postdigital discourse, specifically the literary novel and Twitter. We discuss how the two spread the codes and behaviour of love through social systems. We then go on to question and share these codes through the creation of some Lovely Chatterbots on Twitter, inspired by romantic novels, an example of which we ask you to bring to the session.
Attendees should bring:
- A romantic novel or other type of fiction that talks about relationships. You should (re)read it before coming to the workshop.
- Laptop computer.