Digital Double: Alternative Media and Counter-Narratives
Channel: Jonathan J. Felix
Date: 2018-12-07

Digital spaces hold potential for creative and participatory practices through expressions of Alternative Media, as any cultural ‘prosumption’ (production + consumption) activity which serves communities of interest affected by unequal relations and articulations of power. By employing a visual discourse analysis, this brief documentary is a case study which explores the work of Caribbean creative, Warren Le Platte and his unusual creation of an Internet meme series in 2016. As both a reflexive practice and socio-cultural critique of his home country of Trinidad, Le Platte’s work raises questions regarding the cultural logic which informs the dysfunctional relationship between local institutions and the public they are expected to serve. Le Platte’s work is an example of Double Alternativity – the practice of Culture Jamming reappropriated into a new disruptive form which functions as a participatory and subversive device. Furthermore, Le Platte serves as an example of how Caribbean peoples might reinscribe their identity through reflexive counter-narratives.

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This documentary premiered at The Caribbean Digital V Conference, 6-7 December 2018, The University of the West Indies,  St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago