01.05.–31.07.2026

Research Project

Regarding the common.
#commonplace#commonsense#commonopinion

The affordances of digital platforms are geared towards a desire for novelty. Even though Instagram saves everything that has ever been posted, the way the app works suggests that transience is its default mode of use. Yet, despite the impermanence of the posts, certain image compositions and motifs establish themselves as stable forms. This pictorial eloquence is not due to the constant creativity of all users, but rather the result of the constant copying of what already exists. In this respect, the internet can be described as a copying machine (Dirk von Gehlen) that reproduces and recombines. The recurring forms of communication that emerge from this, I argue, can be analysed as a digital re-edition of the rhetorical commonplace. From the ephemerality of the information, a repertoire of recyclable forms crystallises, which are deployed as commonplaces in a rhetorical sense, i.e. with specific communicative aims. In my lecture, I would like to use individual examples of digital platitudes to highlight the resonance between contemporary communication strategies and ancient rhetoric.