Between Visibility and Invisibility: Social Media in Art
Today, social media is much more than just a communication channel — it is also a key platform for showcasing art. It enables works to be shared, networks to be established and attention to be generated. However, the real upheaval is taking place where social media is not just a tool, but has become the subject of artistic exploration in its own right.
Social Media as Subject Matter for Art.
Contemporary art focuses on the platforms themselves, examining their aesthetics, codes, and mechanisms. It considers the conditions under which visibility arises and questions what constitutes the private or public sphere in the digital realm. This reveals that the internet is not a neutral storage medium, but a structure that controls perception, standardises content and shapes social relationships.
The artistic appropriation of social media reveals the contradictions that define our everyday digital lives. For example, algorithms designed to improve efficiency are misused to expose their hidden power. Intimate moments that appear on timelines are reinterpreted as performative gestures. The apparent immediacy of posts is thus revealed to be a staged surface that encourages strategies of self-optimisation rather than authenticity.
This highlights a key paradox: the logic of viral dissemination, which promises visibility, can also lead to invisibility. Amidst an abundance of images and messages, the unique and individual becomes lost and the original dissolves into the norm. Thus, the much-praised individuality of digital self-presentation becomes monotonous and repetitive.
Artistic engagement with social media also highlights its political explosiveness. The same mechanisms that attract attention also facilitate the spread of misinformation. False information optimised for algorithms achieves a wider reach than nuanced statements. Art reflecting these dynamics creates spaces for critical discussion of aesthetic, social and ethical issues.
The internet cannot be clearly evaluated as a uniform entity. It is neither purely a tool for connection nor solely a source of division. It is neither purely liberating nor exclusively restrictive. Rather, these dimensions overlap and contradict each other yet are inextricably intertwined. It is precisely this ambivalence that gives art its potential: it reveals what remains invisible in everyday digital life, providing a means of expressing the forces that fundamentally alter the relationship between reality and virtuality.
ARTINFOS.NET