?how to make art with common materials?, 2017
hoaxfolks, 2018
People follow each other, support each other’s desire to be loved on social media. As an easy space for people to fall in love, look the way they want to, create content that will find a following if one has a consistent schedule, it is largely considered to be a safe space for many. You can be worshipped online by loyal followers that love every word said by you, and defend you no matter what. There is a ritualistic aspect to gaining a following online. Long articles with tips on how one can gain a following quickly emphasise on creating recognisable ‘look’ or a theme, a consistent routine of posting content and interaction with one’s audience. Such strategies are used by many 'internet artists' today.
It is not that an artist needs to produce merely art anymore to gain recognition and following. Instead, with the platform of the internet, it is essential to create their brand to cater to an audience, an exercise in self-commodification serving content desired by people. Ones relevance comes not with quality of their work, but with numbers which can be generated through clever strategies.
In the Essay “Aesthetic Athletes”, Brad Troemel says :
“Instead of creating a few, thoroughly worked pieces, the aesthlete produces a constant stream of work in social media to ride atop the wave in viewers’ newsfeeds, or else become the wave itself, overwhelming them with material. The tacit agreement between the aesthlete and the viewer is to be mutually indifferent toward quality understood as slick production value or refined craft. For aesthletes, the point of their work is not only what it expresses but the speed at which it’s expressed. “
Conditions have changed for the artists as well as its audience. Viewing routines and patterns are defined by the refresh rate of information available to us online. One usually does not focus on a status update, photo or artwork for an extended period of time. The very format of social media is designed to be this way : to prevent heavy material, setting boundaries such as a maximum character limit of 140 (twitter) or maximum post limit of 10 photos (Instagram). It is therefore essential to produce content online consistently in order to maintain one’s following.
If a post has no response from its online audience, could it be considered art? If one loses their audience, they lose the context that regards their very work as “art”. Similarly, if a religious portrait/object (of worship) is displaced from its alter, is it still a holy object ?
Apps like Neutrino+ create a barter market of online attention. Attention is necessary and people are willing to do all that it takes, even if it means giving attention just to get it back. Apps are hosted specifically for the purpose of giving a platform to people in the dire need of getting followers. You can easily get a number stamped right next to your name, but what is the ultimate outcome of this long process of exchanging attention? Is it anything more than the number itself? One may even trick themselves into thinking that they are noticed and loved with these numbers, and that may be why these follower trading apps seem to work so efficiently, with over 1 million downloads on many of them.
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Constant Dullaart wrote in ‘100,000 Instagram followers for everyone’:
“Art adjusted to the specificities of the social medium in order to harvest more acknowledgment from the audience. The quantified social capital of attention through likes and retweets causes a measurable value differentiating artists, stimulating a competition based system where popularity wins over quality. Creating, in essence, pop art.
How do we truly engage with this quantified audience, and how do we treat this commodified attention as a medium while aspiring equality and autonomy in expression? Can we use this material to express political concerns about populist art, art flipping, and social inequality in general?”
The origin of the narrative presented by these profiles constantly evolves with time. Images and stories are the tools of both religious propaganda as well as social media, and are used to facilitate self-commodification. Both are sold to us, ideologically as well as monetarily, as fantastical ideas, beliefs or objects that are bound to make us feel good and reassure us of ourselves. There is a lot of scope of speculation in both instances, and it is not necessary that what you see or what you hear is the truth, as it is diluted and altered through the ‘Chinese whisper’ effect.
Photographs of abandoned portraits of Gods are paired with popular hashtags on religion available online on various forums. Instagram is used as an online gallery and exhibition space. All the images are edited in the same way, low brightness, contrast, highlights and shadows; high saturation and warmth. It is made to fit the same aesthetic with white borders, a common strategy in portfolio or artist displays, emulating the 'minimal' aesthetic. Apps like Followers++, Neutrino+, Meteor, etc. are used to add more than one thousand and three hundred followers in just two days.
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By curating these images of abandoned Gods on Instagram, this project aims to cultural re-appropriation through the medium of internet. Its meaning lies heavily in the medium itself. I use a set of popular/top hashtags from lists available online. The response and attitude of the audience give meaning to the object, whether it is images of Gods or Instagram accounts. The way it is utilised defines whether it is an object of influence, reassurance and comfort or if it is of no importance and is worthy of being forgotten and thrown away.
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