Autodigest is the focus for an ‘apocalyptic’ perception of contemporary culture, dedicated to developing and sharing a critical eye within a culture that is quickly becoming synonymous with a black hole of pure entertainment. Taking on Baudrillard’s theory of hyperconformism as its starting point, the aim of Autodigest is to provide a space for the analysis and allegory of the catastrophic state of contemporary social and cultural structures, inviting the consumer to reconsider and reinvent his/her role in the process.

Autodigest was conceived [as in 'concept'] in a hotel lobby on May 26, 2001, at approximately 9 a.m., after a night of excess and euphoria. Hotel muzak acted as the trigger for a quick rêverie on the state of music at the beginning of the 21st Century.
A series of unplanned events and actions, coincidences and convergences, launched this onto the public sphere and made it “serious”.

 

What does one mean?
A mobile phone company sponsors a million-pound reward for information on a missing child.
The execution of Saddam Hussein is recorded by mobile phones, footage immediatly downloadable on peer-to-peer sites amongst mp3 pop hits.
Ringtone culture manages to reduce the entire history of popular music to an endless parade of digitised, 3-second loops.The social consequences of digital ubiquity.
Media addiction (digital photography as the “new nicotine”).
The possiblity of a relationship between digital overconsumption and mental illness.
The impossibility of intimacy.
The karaoke syndrome: Chris Crocker becomes Britney.

 

Though not secretive, Autodigest remains anonymous and multidimensional. It means to walk the tightrope between the complexity of the issues addressed and a hyperconformist approach to cultural resistance, placing itself right in the middle of the syndromes it analyses and critiques. For all we know, one of these days it might surface as a reality show… In the meantime, keep on cheering!