NET/STALGIA: Nostalgia-Tripping on the Internet Aesthetic

As the Internet drifts away from being a novel technology, people have increasingly become fascinated by the sometimes-garish, comparatively rudimentary aesthetics of the early web. Using Walter Benjamin's reflections on the Parisian arcades as a framework, I propose that this nostalgia for the hand-made digital does not necessarily reflect a desire to return to the dial-up era. Rather, what people are actually missing is the energy of possibility for the potential future. To further this comparison, my art installation, <em>the internet was my teenage bedroom, </em>expounds upon the written critical component of my thesis, drawing a parallel between the teenage bedroom and the older Internet as spaces of rich excitement, discovery, and creativity–something special, pure, and somewhat utopic in the personal and beyond.