Through the Peristyle, a Virtual Square, and (a Study of) Digital Media
From the window of our department’s classroom, we can see the Peristyle. While studying virtual meeting squares, we gaze upon the ancient one. Everything is the same, yet everything is different. When people first began gathering in public spaces, they were overjoyed at the chance to express themselves publicly. Over time, however, that cacophony of voices became regulated by rules, directed toward common goals, and subjected to consensus. The virtual space where we now meet is also a vast square. Once again, we are intoxicated by the myriad possibilities of the new and the different - just like back then, in the square. Only this time, we’re waiting for someone to organize and structure this space. We're waiting for them to finish their studies - those people on this side of the window. Those who critically engage with digital media; who explore their potential but also examine their flaws and dangers.
The Peristyle was not merely a result of physical coordinates - it was a site of practice, a lived space shaped by a multitude of processes. Without that component of practicing the space, it becomes an empty category, raw material for an image we’d call a "still life." There’s something symbolic about the fact that we, who study media, breathe life into that space through our daily practices by coming into the classrooms and offices of the department. Through conversation, reading, writing, and learning. And it is precisely this that we sorely lack when confronting the digital Goliath. In the Peristyle, the bearer of power was clearly visible. He stood five steps above the crowd, in the prothyrum. He governed the square and unambiguously set the rules and obligations. But who today is involved in shaping what we encounter in the digital square? What tools must we equip ourselves with in order to expose it?
The Peristyle was also a space of freedom. Diocletian would retreat to his chambers, through the vestibule, far from the public eye. And the people would remain in the square, murmuring forbidden jokes and criticisms, forming alliances, devising indirect tactics… No matter how many rules and regulations, rulers and officials there were, they would find their space of freedom. Right there, in the square. Just fifty meters from that very spot, the murmuring in our classroom slowly, day by day, from course to course, becomes the research of our own spaces of freedom. Places where we are beyond the reach of the manipulations we have previously "read." It is the same voice - from the ancient Peristyle to the present - only with slightly different challenges.
doc. dr. sc. Nebojša Lujanović
