Sophie Publig, Charlotte Reuß
Choose Your Avatar – Girlblogging as posthumanist practice

Workshop
13 May 2025, 5.00–7.00 PM
The Academy of Fine Arts and Design, UL, Video, Animation and New Media, Tobačna 5, Ljubljana

Part of Tactics & Practice #16: Are You A Software Update?

In this workshop, participants will explore the fluid identity of the Girl Online through the lens of autotheory, using digital tools inspired by girlblogging practices such as journaling, speculative storytelling, fan fiction, browser tab histories, and moodboard archaeology. By reimagining life paths as narratives shaped by mood, energy, and traits—similar to creating a game character in The Sims—you’ll be able to consider how we construct and perform our identities online and irl. Projecting the contradictions embodied by the Girl Online onto personal avatar creation offers the possibility to perform a critique of gender stereotypes in connection to platform capitalism, while acknowledging the Girl Online’s identity as one rooted in late capitalism. Playing with the cultural artifacts of girlblogging allows participants to unearth the entanglements between their digital and meatspace selves and experiment with renarrating their existence through the perspective of the Girl Online. 

Takeaways:
A deeper understanding of the construction of fluid identities in the context of digital cultures, late stage capitalism, and posthumanism.

Practical tools for storytelling and autotheory to craft new narratives.

Media-specific techniques to engage with and reinterpret online artifacts, like browser tab histories and Tumblr archaeology.

Updated insights into the interweaving between personal identity and digital cultures through the lens of the Girl Online.

Duration: 2h

Materials and knowledge required:
No prior knowledge is required—just an open mind and willingness to explore!
Participants should bring a laptop or tablet for online exploration and writing.
A notebook or journal is recommended for offline sketching of ideas and reflections.

Free of charge. Registration required!

THE AUTHORS

Sophie Publig is a Senior Scientist and internet archaeologist exploring digital ecosystems. Based at the Weibel Institute for Digital Cultures at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and affiliated with the Critical Media Lab in Basel, she researches and teaches on memes, critical posthumanism and digital occultism, with a focus on unearthing the symbiotic relationships between technology, culture and the environment. Her 2023 dissertation on the history of internet memes will be published by punctum books in the coming year. In collaboration with Charlotte Reuß, Sophie has been working on the research project @weareallgirlsonline since 2024.

Charlotte Reuß‘s research explores digital cultures, copyright, and the commodification and accessibility of culture. Since 2020, she has been affiliated with the Department of Art History, the Art Education Department, and the Weibel Institute for Digital Cultures at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where she is pursuing her doctoral research on access to culture in the context of digitality. Alongside Sophie Publig, she is also a collaborator on the research project @weareallgirlsonline. Charlotte holds degrees in Art History from the University of Vienna and in European Art History and Philosophy from Ruperto Carola University of Heidelberg.

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Aksioma | Project Space, Ljubljana