If, as Lyotard claims, postmodernism can be defined as "a radical incredulity" toward the religious, political, mythical and scientific meta-narratives which serve(d) to "legitimize the pursuit of knowledge,"[1] then archives of personal material stored online may be considered examples of postmodern narrative, in line with his idea that narrative has a "modest"[2] place in contemporary culture, no longer being meta- but instead rhetorical, performative. The box is almost the opposite of this, its contents folded and contained, seemingly meant only for the owner. But I, as the current trustee of the box, in 2019, have access to such online sources, and I dive and surface, dive and surface, prompted by the box. I create a trail, I examine and save strands and threads which form an "encompassing framework (in which) narratives are embedded,"[3] shifting my role in the traditional writer/reader relationship to something more like detective, rejecting the "cause-and-effect trajectory"[4] in favour of numerous possible trajectories based on my clicks, not on a single path dictated by a storyteller. I trace an online identity of the box, imagining the investigation later - my computer seized, experts following the browsing history and telling themselves this same story, but backwards.
"Over 30 million virtual profiles have outlived their owners,"[5] and the time when the number of dead Facebook users outnumbers the living ones is estimated to be as soon as the 2060s.[6] Facsimiles of lives or digital graveyards will exceed the number of people physically living, probably in my lifetime. And what will these online archives tell us about the people they represent, and about remembrance and the idea of a life story? As the photographs and letters that previous generations have as keepsakes are superseded by this online content, will the way we remember each other be richer, if it draws on so many more archived items than have ever been available before? Or will it actually remove the need for remembrance, if the deceased's online presence continues to interact with us beyond their bodily lifetime? But I’m not looking for people. At no point do I look for any of the people mentioned in the box. Well, except for the photographer; but that’s different. My searches concern locations and dates, pockets of space and time which relate to each other, or do not. Places, too, have an online presence. [1] Lyotard, J.-F. (1984), cited by Alphen, p.9 [2] Lyotard, J.-F. (1984), cited by Alphen, p.8 [3] Alphen, p.12 [4] Manovich, L. (2001), cited by Alphen, p.9 [5] Welcome to Facebook: The World’s Largest Digital Graveyard (2014). www.talkdeath.com [6] Facebook of the dead. what-if.xkcd.com
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