“We’re living in an age of perfectionism, and perfection is the idea that kills. Whether it’s social media or pressure to be the impossibly ‘perfect’ twenty-first-century iterations of ourselves, or pressure to have the perfect body, or pressure to be successful in our careers, or any of the other myriad ways in which we place overly high expectations on ourselves and other people, we’re creating a psychological environment that’s toxic.”
Storr, W. (2017; 17)
This week I have also revisited my bookmarked copy of Storr’s Selfie (2017) which questions the so-called perfectionism, that depicts the impossible ideals of beauty, success and size and his subsequent suggestion we are in an epidemic of narcissism, where the need to seek constant validation through likes, follows, retweets is part and parcel in comparing one’s success with that of a peer. This I feel remains a relevant comment towards my current work, as the notion of perfectionism is not only sought in the ideology of the perfect self, but also of the perfect location that influencers sell to consumers viewing their stream, ultimately the self however remains the centre-point and ultimate sell. I’m not alone in this thinking with the likes of Hart writing about the ‘Age of Vanity’ (Hart,A. 2014) and Asquith writing in Forbes last year the following comment about travel images:
“Images became less about the destinations, and more about pretty and edited images where individual egos and a drive for self-fame took over from the overriding message of inspiring travel. The destination took a back seat, and in an ever increasing attempt for ‘insta-fame’ people portrayed perfect lives of 365 days travel a year. Recent stories that have surfaced of apparent influencers editing the same pictures of clouds into different images does little to throw any water on the flames of the current debate.”
Asquith, J. (2019)
Amalia Ulman
An artist I’ve looked at in the past, who explores the phenomenon of social media identity and lifestyle, is Amalia Ulman. She achieves this in many ways, ranging from installation art, illustration, performance art, poetry and photography, as well as combining them. Ulman publishes and distributes her content via a variety channels and vehicles using: video, traditional gallery spaces, a photobook and online publication on Instagram. Ulman’s online presence of ‘self’ doesn’t reflect the reality of her life, instead it is satirical in nature, satirising the users of the Instagram online platform itself, simulating the result of cosmetic surgery such as breast enhancement in her series Excellences and Perfections (2014). Despite this her inauthentic content was voraciously consumed by her followers, who believed the images and videos she posts are real, rather than of her fabricated persona. Farkas’ foreword in Excellences and Perfections photobook (2018) is apt in describing not only Ulman’s series but also puts into question the reality of self, she states:
“The ‘realness’ of the immediate physical body intrinsic to the history of performance art is made blatantly hyperreal as Ulman moves the terms and territory within which performance is permitted to live. Performance art is suddenly more about an unreality. The performance of the self in everyday
Farkas, R. (2018; 6-7)
life suddenly seems not at all distant from the raw authenticity that physical-presence-as-art-object has presumed. What if it is in fact this unreality that is actual? The announcement of the work as performance only after 14 September 2014 compounded this. The cries of ‘She’s fake?!’ rang out, yet died as the dawning of all of our personal performances as untruths, our selves, became lucid.”
Like Ulman, my practice contains a strong narrative around the exploration of the human condition, what drives others to live their lives digitally online, and why people today are seemingly obsessed with creating online personas and false realities, whether it is simply a form of escapism or something more sinister. Ultimately it has led me to question whether the visual aesthetics, content and overall use of social media I encountered when coming of age shaped and impacted my generation’s world views and visual journey to the extent of becoming submerged in unreality… A manipulated manifesto of ephemeral imagery, where nothing is the truth, yet nothing is entirely a lie.
Molly Soda
Molly Soda’s work resonates elements of my own practice, having both experienced the early days of mass consumer access to the Internet, evoking nostalgia through the appropriation of early Internet tropes and aesthetics as a counter-balance to the lack of diversity offered by social media sites today. Soda’s practice is not limited solely to photography or a single platform. For example Soda in the past has like Ulman used Instagram, however she also present work via over online platforms and gallery installations producing videos, GIFs, zines and web-based performance art, alongside self-portraiture. Like Ulman, Soda uses her online platforms as a medium to showcase and develop an alter-ego, an internet-only identity. Soda’s work is ultimately an ongoing investigation on the ways people, particularly young women, use social media platforms to communicate. In an interview for The Creative Independent Soda discusses the internet today and mentions that:
“We have a lot less control over our profiles now. With Livejournal, Myspace, and Xanga, people were teaching themselves how to code, learning how to make things. I don’t see that as much anymore. Maybe teens are still doing that to a certain degree. But I think the aesthetics really got smashed. There are no more glitter graphics, only reaction gifs. It’s really streamlined and white and blue, with no music.”
Soda, M. (2018)
References
Figures
Figure 1 Asquith, J. (2019) Pisa, Italy. Influencers have popularised perfect and quirky pictures at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but tourists are regularly amazed to see the extent of what lays the other side of the camera lens here [in] Forbes: Have Instagram Influencers Ruined Travel For An Entire Generation? [Online] Available from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2019/09/01/have-instagram-influencers-ruined-travel-for-an-entire-generation/#3421dd971e30 [Accessed 12/03/2020]
Figure 2 Ulman, A. (2016) Screenshot of Excellences and Perfections. [Online] Available from: https://shop.whitechapelgallery.org/products/amalia-ulman-excellences-perfections-instagram-update-18th-june-2014-screenshot-2016 [Accessed 13/03/2020]
Figure 3 Soda, M. (2018) Bear. [Online] Available from: http://www.annkakultys.com/artists/molly-soda/ [Accessed 13/03/2020]
Bibliography
Asquith, J. (2019) Forbes: Have Instagram Influencers Ruined Travel For An Entire Generation? [Online] Available from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2019/09/01/have-instagram-influencers-ruined-travel-for-an-entire-generation/#3421dd971e30 [Accessed 12/03/2020]
Hart, A. (2014) Telegraph: Generation selfie: Has posing, pouting and posting turned us all into narcissists? [Online]. Available from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11265022/Selfieobsession-are-we-the-most-narcissistic-generation-ever.html [Accessed 13/03/2020]
Lesser, C. (2017) Molly Soda on How Social Media Changes Us IRL. [Online]. Available from: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-molly-soda-social-media-changes-irl [Accessed 13/03/2020]
Soda, M. [in] Geffen, S. (2018) The Creative Independent: Molly Soda on making art from your online history. [Online]. Available from: https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/molly-soda-on-making-art-from-your-online-history/ [Accessed 13/03/2020]
Storr, W. (2017) Selfie: How the West became self-obsessed. pg 17 (The Dying Self). London; Picador.
Ulman, A. Farkas, R. Stagg, N. Steyerl, H. Horning, R. (2018) Excellences & Perfections.(Farkas, R. Foreword pg 6-7) Slovenia; Prestel Verlag.
Jasmine Murray Photography 