The implied producer investigating an emergent typology in participatory culture

Whereas many good things can be said about the ability of digital media to facilitate the public access to cultural material, there has been no significant development in the theoretical understanding of ubiquitous digital media's potential for participatory culture -- and what human typologies emerges from this reconfiguration? The small Swedish Biennale, Electrohype run an impressively straight line of investigations into the participatory spaces of art -- thereby also facilitating the dissemination of the, at that time, almost unnoticed field of media art. It appears, from the Electrohype Biennales, that we are not 'just' dealing with a 'new' genre or style within the art category; on the other hand we are not dealing with a pure commercial culture either (the abstract notion of 'the user' has its limits); what is becoming evident is that the 'implicit' roles of the participatory 'actors' in culture and art are being transformed. This paper investigates this emergent 'persona' in the post-digital participatory culture, and names it 'the implicit producer'.