A new exhibition curated by Sárai Vanda is to open in Modem on Saturday, (from 4pm on July 17th). Entitled #IFeelSeen, the exhibition has a focus on Social Media and the effect it has on our lives. From 5 pm there will be a LADY / BIRD DJ session in the inner garden, the exhibition will be open to the public from 3 pm.
According to some research, today our smartphone makes us feel similar to our home. This is mainly due to the social apps that allow us to check out the reality around us anywhere, anytime, and instead be instantly where we want to be: in a chat window with a family member or friend, on a favorite pet’s Instagram page, or on a popular YouTube channel, or even on a live broadcast from outer space.
At the same time, the display is surrounded not only by the protective warmth of home, but also by the disturbing stimuli of the outside world anywhere, anytime: a late night work email, a harassing message or comment, or even a constant and disturbing flood of news or fake news.
The mechanism of operation of social media is therefore suitable for causing extreme conditions: it can simultaneously generate previously unimaginable community cooperation and solidarity of actions, but it is also a hotbed of exclusion, observation, competition and stigma. This logic fundamentally reshapes the way we interact not only as individuals, but also as professionals, and not only with each other, but also with companies, policy makers, artificial intelligences. We do all this on a public stage, but we are rarely fully aware of who is sharing our shared information, in what form, and who will ultimately benefit from the data extracted from it.
These states are also captured in the title of the exhibition: the hashag #IFeelSeen (i.e. they look at me, know, see everything) is mainly used by users in situations where they know themselves in a typically funny example – as if to say, I fell to do this. At the same time, the term has other meanings: it can refer to the happy state when one finally feels that one belongs somewhere, recognized for who they truely are where one can freely show one’s true self, but also the ominous and somewhat paranoid feeling that occurs when we feel someone watching us.
Through the works of young Hungarian educators and media artists in the group exhibition, conspiracy theories and observational capitalism, fetish attitudes towards our tools, aggression and harassment, social image redefined by social media, ways of transforming relationships in online space or even imagery. Many societal questions come under scrutiny.
The exhibition was part of Modem’s competition for young curators.
Artist list:
Biró Dávid
Éliás Tamás
Kútvölgyi-Szabó Áron
Horváth Gideon
Keresztesi Botond
Lázár Dóri
Papp Sándor Dávid
Váczi Lilla
Curator:
Sárai Vanda.
