Self as Actor

Are you interested in how your use of social media is shaping you or how your online personal identity is data mined by corporations for their own commercial and political profit? These and many other concerns regarding social media are addressed by Self as Actor: Colonising identity, curated by Helene Black and Aysu Arsoy.

Digitality is no longer separated from our every day lives but has become an integrated experience, a depiction of our complex and hierarchical social reality. Although, by now, many users have become aware of the large degree big data involves the vigorous use of what many identify as biased and racist algorithms for analytics as well as software for surveillance, it has not curbed the mass use of social media. In fact, mass networking on social media has become the cultural tool for establishing a sense of intimacy despite the unease of personal disclosure. Real issues such as human rights abuses, homelessness or climate change cannot contest viral videos, fake news, cute pets and more recently, the controversial obsession with ‘dark tourism’ selfies. Algorithms are meant to inform us but the trend since Web 2.0 (1999 onwards), has shifted towards collecting information on users for selective advertisements and political manipulation. Online social activities are tracked and monitored abusing our right of privacy. Targeted personalisation on the Internet today purges reality with users becoming dehumanised commodities existing in a fabricated unreality. The control of the coloniser is now defined by the monopoly of the data colonised.

The opening of the exhibition featured an artist talk by Garrett Lynch (IRL) and a performance by Maria Alexandrou with Androula Kafa and Melissa Zanga.

Self as Actor: Colonising identity from NeMe on Vimeo.