UNIVERSITY OF NOVA GORICA GRADUATE SCHOOL ...

along the lines proposed by Jonathan Harris: ―Stories online aren‘t really stories right now.
They‘re like fragmentary reactions to things for the most part. They‘re like little nerve firings.‖ 320
Nevertheless, it‘s the interaction of fragmentary stories and user responses that evoke a more
complex narrative that to some extent rests, apart from the suspension of disbelief, also on digital
empathy.
And yes, this is present in offline memorials and statues etc. as well: presupposing that the viewer
will, ‗for the sake of the argument,‘ tolerate obvious inaccuracies and inconsistencies and
impalusibilities, and ‗buy into the story.‘ The perspective can be shifted somewhat to suggest that
in the case of digital memorials, as opposed to cinema for instance, where the characters and plot
are usually the carrier of the narrative, the effect of suspension in digital memorials,
―incorporating taken-for-granted knowledge and unspoken assumptions,‖ 321 is that of a different
scale of immersion: into one‘s own memories or interpretations of the past. Yes, the viewer may
‗see‘ a picture of Josip Broz or of partisans engaged in a battle or of the bombing of the Mostar
Bridge, but that is not all. The wide array of different comments, different accents and opposing
views demonstrate that in fact when people comment on these videos they comment on their
memories, i.e. they externalise (to the machine at first), often briefly and loudly, what they
‗actually see‘ when watching a digital memorial; they perform what they believe or want to voice
as an indication of their identity, belief, worldview.
320 Jonathan Harris in interview with Kristina Loring, ―The Never-Ending Story,‖ designmind,
business/technology/design, http://designmind.frogdesign.com/articles/the-never-ending-story.html, accessed 23
August 2011.
321 Catherine Baker, ―‗Death to Fascism isn‘t in the Catechism,‘ 164.
164