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The creative rise of Internet nostalgia

   As the early days of the Internet begin to inform creative practices,
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   But is it all too soon?

   A sped up sense of nostalgia

   As artists explore the tumultuous history of the digital and create
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   rise and fall, versions are superseded in mere heartbeats and
   universally adopted programs can disappear after just a few months.
    According to Kostreva a true sense of nostalgia can build up around
   this fast turn around of programs and systems. ‘I think/hope that there
   is always a certain level of sincerity to it, considering that most of
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   height of our interest, when it “was still good.” Those are the
   memories that become romanticised and sentimental. The cycle of
   generating nostalgia mirrors the life-span of these online entities.’

   An extra sense of loss stems from the common user belief that the
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   old technologies able to inform upon modern practice.

   ‘I don’t think it is nostalgia alone that is driving this love of old
   technology. I might have fond memories of Super Mario Kart but that
   doesn’t mean it’s not still awesome.’
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   aesthetic response.

   ‘Nostalgia is really about the feeling the memories give you so I find
   it’s most successful when artists try and capture that feeling in the
   style of their work. Personally when I see Internet nostalgia used as
   subject matter I find the work to be flat and uninteresting. Nostalgia
   goes against critical thinking, it glorifies.’

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   Yet some artworks seem to be both sincere and ironic at the same time.
   While this initially seems impossible, the sped up conditions in which
   Internet nostalgia emerged has helped to make this an actuality.

   According to Schreier, ‘As the rate of technological development
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   By existing within this digital culture a swinging oscillation between
   hope and despair is intuitively assumed. Internet nostalgia relates to
   this by highlighting a recent past that is now obsolete through swift
   technological advancement.

   ‘Given the frustrations of current times, there is a very palpable
   sense of nostalgia for the unfulfilled promises of past utopian
   visions. In revisiting these moments, as we oscillate between former
   and future visions, there is perhaps a hope that we might come to