April 14th, 2026, will mark 30 years since Jennifer Ringley, then a college student, mounted a digital camera on top of her computer in her dorm room and began streaming online. Ringley’s webcam, known as JenniCam, transmitted nearly uninterrupted for seven years, becoming the most enduring webcam performance of the early Internet. Despite not being recognized as a pioneer during her time, Jennifer Ringley made Internet history by pioneering live self-streaming.

Thirty years later, we will commemorate JenniCam’s anniversary with a day-long event about and through live streaming practices.

Morning – 4th Space, Concordia (LB-103)

10:15 am Doors open
10:30 am JenniCam in Context: Keynote lecture by Susanna Paasonen (online), plus an in-situ conversation.

About the talk: Jennifer Ringley is broadly remembered, and celebrated, as the first camgirl monetizing the promises of realness of authenticity in networked connections (fast-forward to the current influencer economy). Taking a media archaeological approach where phenomena are interpreted not as signs of things to come but rather as indicative of the horizons of possibility that once were, Paasonen’s talk inquires after Jennicam in context: the technological and social environments where it emerged, three decades ago, and the specific kind of internet celebrity that Ringley coined.
Speaker bio: Susanna Paasonen is a professor of media studies at the University of Turku, Finland, and most recently the coauthor of Hot Connections: Why Sexual Platforms Matter (with Jenny Sundén and Katrin Tiidenberg, MIT Press 2026).

Afternoon – Speculative Life Cluster (EV-10.625), Milieux, Concordia

1:00 pm A pop-up live TV studio transmission hosted in collaboration with the Institute of Network Cultures.

Presentations and in-situ conversations include: Tommaso Campagna on live streaming as a form of publishing (TheVoid.TV); Geert Lovink on the lives of the online self (online); Seska Lee on camming and the construction of liveness; Lotte de Jong on webcam and art (online). There will also be interventions on moderation and monetization strategies, as well as live and not-so-live performances of live coding, object theatre, and music.

Snacks and beverages will be provided at both locations.

Further details and online transmissions at: Jennicam-at-30.com

This event would not be possible without the generous and enthusiastic support of:

DIGS, Milieux, Speculative Life-Machine Agencies, CISSC, COMS Concordia, Institute of Network Cultures, PLSM