“YOLOCAUST: You Only Live Once.” Holocaust and New Form of Representation

    • Cover Venice
    • Presentation speakers
      • Eirene Campagna, International University of Languages and Media, Milan, Italy

    Abstract:

    In 2017, Shahak Shapira wrote: “Dear Internet, last week I launched a project called YOLOCAUST that explored our commemorative culture by combining selfies from the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin with footage from Nazi extermination camps. The selfies were found on Facebook, Instagram, Tinder and Grindr. Comments, hashtags and Likes that were posted with the selfies are also included.” Indeed, since the Nineties Berlin has become the public space for several monuments and memorials to commemorate the extermination of the Jews. Some of those are: Eisenmann’s memorial or the Liebskind’s museum, Platform 17 (a railway station in the Grunewald district of Berlin), and many more in the whole city. However, it happens that tourists or visitors don’t know the real nature of these monuments and this phenomenon is explained by Shahak Shapira in his project. It is a website, which collected pictures on social networks, such as Facebook or Instagram, taken inside the Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and it transformed them into gifs. In the animated image, at first appears the original shot, then the background is replaced by pictures showing dead bodies and concentration camps. In this paper, starting from Yolocaust, I intend to analyse the relationship between Holocaust and new forms of representation. At the same time, through this analyse I’d like to observe the perception of the Holocaust in the society, especially in the post-memory era.