Digital culture and visual studies: Nostalgia and dreaming after COVID-19 event in Iran

Abstract

The event of the epidemic of Covid-19 had a massive shock to the borders of the order of Iranian everyday life. The emergence of death and disease from the Covid-19 put Iran in an exception state. Universities and schools were shut down and people went to lockdown. Also, the event of the epidemic of Covid-19 led to other events such as quarantine and it caused economic, mental, and family crises. The crucial event of the epidemic of Covid-19 was coincident with the traditional ceremony of Iranian New Year accompanied by shopping, traveling, and visiting families. But all of them were destroyed. By shutting down the city and the necessity of not coming together, digital geography was the most important space for retrieval of relationships and people could share their emotions of fear and anxiety and they make an emotional connection. Thus, one of the most important emotions which were shared in virtual social networks included nostalgia about the time before the epidemic of Covid-19 in Iran and dreaming the coming future. Then by applying a multidisciplinary approach through digital cultural studies and visual studies, the main object of the article is to analyze how emotions of nostalgia and dreaming of Iranian people were expressed on Instagram and Facebook. Consequently, remembering the city as a lost secure home and thinking of a vague future as dreaming indicates of getting stuck in the present time of the field of the event.

Keywords

• covid-19
• event
• digital geography
• nostalgia
• quarantine
• instagram