The article in the url below reports on the attempt by an artist, Ben Grosser, to use his work to critique the rise of Facebook, in general, and the role of Mark Zuckerberg in driving that change, in particular:
"When the history of the first decades of this century comes to be written, there will be few more telling artworks than Ben Grosser's film Order of Magnitude. In the 47 minute video, Grosser, a digital artist and professor of new media at the University of Illinois, has spliced together every public instance in which Mark Zuckerberg has talked of 'more' and 'bigger.' The resulting montage of interviews and presentations is a fast forward of the rapid growth of Facebook as, in the chief executive's mouth, thousands become millions then billions. It makes a mesmerising monologue, the story of our times."
By contrast, the equivalent video Grosser made of Zuckerberg saying things related to 'small' or 'decreasing in size' is much shorter:
"The film is part of a double act. Grosser has also spliced together all the moments he can find of Zuckerberg ever mentioning numbers diminishing or things getting smaller. This film runs for 30 seconds, though in a new version for his forthcoming exhibition at the Arebyte Gallery in London, he has slowed those seconds down so it also runs for 47 minutes."
Grosser (as "a teacher of art") uses this work as a foundation for more fundamental activism against the damaging effects of social media. A significant part of that work is trying to alter the perceptions of those who have grown up in an age of social media, which has affected their ability to evaluate its effects, objectively, as well as their notion of what art is:
"Grosser asks his students a question in their first seminar. 'Who here has deleted a social media post within 10 minutes of putting it up, because it didn't have the metric reaction they hoped for?' Every hand goes up. Then he says: 'Now imagine if any of the artists you admire from the past had paid attention to the first 10 minutes of reaction to their work and used that as a guide about whether to throw something away.' If you're going to have original, strange ideas, he suggests, the world might need time to adjust to them."
One interesting innovation he is trying seeks to alter perceptions around the value of each individual post:
"Grosser has been testing a platform that might help with that, too. Minus breaks all the rules of metric-obsessed media. It allows users only a finite number of posts: exactly 100 across a lifetime and there are no likes or follows. The only way you can interact with another poster is by replying. His beta testers have reported some anxieties, which sound a lot like the kind of anxieties that artists have always felt: 'They almost feel like there's so much weight on a post,' he says. 'It's like, 'I'm only going to get 100, what if I blow one on some bullshit?''"
Take care
David
David Chandler
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How artist Ben Grosser is cutting Mark Zuckerberg down to size
By Tim Adams
August 15, 2021
The Guardian
