Digital Young

I know, I have been really lazy and I haven’t been writing nothing lately. But I do so many institutional stuff that I barely have the time to breathe. So, I would like to present you a project of mine that I have been working to for a year. Here it is the link: www.cerculmihaipop.wordpress.com.

It’s about a cultural anthropology discussion forum. At the Faculty of Letters, there is an ethnology department that I am teaching to. During seminars, I found that me and my students could not finish our discussions and debates, so I thought it would be more useful to create a forum outside normal classes.

Starting from presentations of various ethnological researches (in course of realization or already finished researches) or anthropological documentaries, we discuss, debate and learn. So, last year we talked about various cultural and social realities like “pomana de viu” (people who stage their funerals before dying) and the representations of death associated to this practice, starting from an anthropological movie realized by a Serbian anthropologist, Paun Es. Durlic.

We continued with a discussion about the most reknown Romanian ethnologist, Mihai Pop, and her niece’s research project whose purpose is to re-valorize her grandfather’s image and personality.

Our third session took another turn, when Bogdan Iancu, a young Romanian anthropology researcher, presented to us a documentary about the last professional community that lasted in Romania, “geamgii din Margau” (villagers who produce windows since before communism).

After that, we talked about a ritual that is staged around Easter, in a village near Bucharest. It is called “La Cuci” and consists in a ritual battle. Here is a very expressive picture:

Our next session was extremely interesting; our guest was Valeriu Antonovici who made a documentary about University Square and its memories today. For those who don’t know, this square is known to be the central place where died a lot of people during the ’89 Revolution. So, our researcher realized a documentary about the things that people remember of this symbolic place. This session was one of the most provocative, as it determined us to ask a lot of questions and to stay really late to debate.

And we finished universitary year with a really steamy topic: the trance through dance. A great specialist in body problematics came to present us and to talk with us about the documentary called “Dances of ecstasy”.

Next year I have a lot of ideas to put in practice. This is just one of the projects that took a lot of time, as you can imagine. But new research projects are in prospect, so I will present them really soon.

Behind anonymity, students feel free to write everything they want. and more specific where they want Here’s a microstudy of what students from Faculty of Letters write on the doors and on the walls of toilets. These messages have a content that’s influenced by two important facts: the students from the Faculty of Letters are mostly girls and the space of toilet. This last element is strikingly important as it reveals provocative attitudes. The language is filled with sexuality: both content and form are touched by this purpose of communication.

Even if you can’t see very well, the structure of a message on a toilet door or toilet wall is pretty much the same. It is always a dialogue; the provocateur is usually a guy who declares his availability for sex and he also puts conditions: “I am looking for a blond girl …” A girl always answers to him, insulting him: she calls him a pig or a pervert etc. After that, there can be a chain of reactions towards the guy’s proposal or  the girl’s reaction.

In this picture, the chain of messages ends with a cell phone number. Usually fictive, this number reinforces guy’s availability.

In the next message, the reaction towards the first person who started the chain is very aggressive: “Don’t write on the walls any more! Repent yourself !”, wrote probably a very religious person.

This last one touches another “saint” figure: “Silence, Eminescu is dead”, and the answer comes immediately: “F…k off christians!”.

Some characteristics of toilet writings:

1. are anonymous;

2. have a licensed content / connotation;

3. the first message always has an answer, which is a critique or an insult towards the first provocative message;

4. the pattern of chain messages: any message requires an answer / a reaction; usually, the person who answers to a specific message draws a line or an arrow towards the message that he answers to;

What do yout think / do you see in all these writings / texts / messages? Is there something to see or it’s just something futile? I wouldn’t say it’s something futile because they are for a long time there, messages are different in time. So, why this need to write, to provoke, to make all this game? I have an idea, but I will really develop it in a different post.