direct message – project
dialogue with Adela
dialogue with Irena
dialogue with James
dialogue with Jano
dialogue with Kyoungseok
dialogue with Michala
dialogue with Philip
Project description
The approach of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Tiktok or Instagram is to be able to send messages, pictures or films to a worldwide audience or a large circle of friends. This is usually done with the intention of getting a certain amount of attention and some short feedback. To achieve this, the news or pictures in the large news stream must be eye-catching, must be comparatively extreme, must correspond to clichés. The wide scale of grey is more and more often replaced by a polarising black or white. Due to the enormous amount of messages received, the response time is usually very short. Responses usually take the shape of standardised symbols. The thoughts of the counterpart are not taken up and continued, only rarely is a verbal comment left at all. This is the latest point at which the exchange is usually finished. The partners of the conversation do not get to know each other more profoundly. Communication becomes more superficial on both sides, although more highlights are actually exchanged.
The change in communication forms and cultures in everyday life has been included as a theme in “direct message”. This includes the conscious choice of working with Instagram as a medium through which that change is brought about. In addition to the global message stream described above, Instagram offers a channel for direct communication. Here, images and smaller texts can be exchanged with each other. Through this form of communication, which is more like writing an e-mail or chat, several conversations have been conducted in pictures.
One of the advantages of social media is that you can contact like-minded people worldwide at any time. The offer to talk was readily taken up. Thus, it was possible to conduct a photographic dialogue with ten photographers over the space of half a year. In all cases, the dialogue began with one and the same photograph. The partners reacted to this with a photograph of their own, as an answer to which they received another photograph. The answers were based on the content or style of the photograph received. The photographs exchanged bilaterally in alternation sometimes led to long and very personal pictorial conversations. The universal language of images bridged the cultural differences.
Exhibition:
Fotoatelier am Schönen Berg
16.10. – 01.11.2020 – direct message
time and place:
Januar 2019 – Mai 2020
instagram.com – direct message
thanksgiving:
Adela Sanz Pascual, Irena Šormová, James Ikpe, Jano Sandoval, Kyoungseok Lee, Michala Norup, Philip Butler
exhibition dates:
264 C-Print 20×20 ungerahmt
benötigte Wandlänge: ca 15m