Content disputes: Transmediale 2024 and the "atrocities of data"
In the heart of Berlin, from January 31st through February 4th, the transmediale art and digital culture festival returns for its latest edition. This year's theme, "you're doing amazing, sweetie," is inspired by a famous meme from the Kardashians, symbolizing the performance and selling of oneself online.
The festival, under the artistic direction of Nóra Ó Murchú, delves into the complex relationship between content and politics, particularly in relation to platforms like TikTok and Instagram. It questions whether we consume content or if it consumes us, exploring how the Hollywood side of technology is normalizing forms of surveillance and propagandizing forms of power and control.
One of the festival's centrepieces is the AI-animated Uncensored Lilac by Bassam Issa Al-Sabah and Jennifer Mehigan. This exhibit at Silent Green focuses on how crises create breakdowns in the environment and communication.
The festival is not critiquing platforms or individual producers but rather the way issues are solved. Using the climate crisis as an example, it challenges the notion that buying paper straws is a solution when the real way out is stopping large companies from drilling for oil or gas.
Social media content, as seen in events like those in Israel and Palestine, tends to funnel people into simplified, binary political positions. The festival also highlights the negative impact content can have on political organizing, as seen with the black square on Instagram during the Black Lives Matter movement.
The group exhibition "perfect, perfect, perfect" at Kunstraum Bethanien features new commissioned works by Laura Lulika and Sungsil Ryu, among others. It addresses the loss of context online, leading to miscommunication and misunderstanding.
The transmediale 2024 will continue to focus on contemporary digital culture, with exhibitions and events featuring film screenings, artist talks, performance art, and interdisciplinary installations. Artists like Anja Resman will present stop motion animation projects and programs addressing ecological and social issues through art.
Cory Doctorow, a famous Canadian writer, will give a talk at the festival about the "enshittification of the internet," discussing how internet platforms start serving the people who made them instead of the users. Joshua Neves' book, Technopharmacology, is also mentioned, looking at the connections between network technologies and bio economies, suggesting that technology is designed at root level to make users addicted to it.
With advances in AI, there are concerns about mass unemployment, but the constant consumption of content is not seen as a solution. The festival encourages critical thinking and questions the role of content in our lives, urging us to look beyond the surface and seek a deeper understanding of the issues at hand.
The transmediale festival is a thought-provoking event that challenges us to reconsider our relationship with content and technology. It's a must-visit for anyone interested in digital culture, art, and politics.
