WORKSHOP: IRL CONSTELLATIONS

On social media, algorithms and pop culture.

5:30 - 7:30 CT (January 18 and 25, February 1)

Platform: Zoom

Pricing: Sliding Scale (60% of program income goes to the educator)

Participant Limit: None

Workshop Leader: Sydney Shavers

This 3-part seminar, hosted by artist Sydney Shavers, will focus on readings, artwork, and case studies that address issues of cancel culture, criticality, the internet, pop culture, social media, genre and identity. What do we choose to accept or ignore when we look at the world through these lenses? How can we best navigate the ‘echo chamber’ of the internet?

In this program we will study what cake cutting videos & drag reveals expose about our human desires, why teenagers pretending to be big box stores on TikTok has everything to do with cancel culture, the similarities between politicians & Balenciaga, how NSFW accounts evade social media platforms by link usage, and how this all impacts our daily lives.

This program is for anyone who wants to better understand the internet’s role in creating culture, and is interested in reading, thinking and sharing in community with others.

To give you a better idea of each session’s content check out The Trump Balenciaga Complex & Link In Bio is a Slow Knife.

 
“By our simple engagement with a constellation of media platforms that treat users like livestock, culling their wishes, modifying them slightly, and then feeding them back to the masses? The more we look at the spectacle with disbelief, the framework implies, the sooner we’ll find ourselves in its center, like a camera filming itself in a mirror.” - The Trump Balenciaga Complex

Sydney Shavers is an artist whose work glitches preconceived notions of meaning. Her work uses deceptive camouflage to infiltrate systems both digital and ‘IRL’, and expose the ways humans construct understanding, mediate perception, and prescribe limits. She uses the lyrics of pop music, meme culture, social media algorithms and smartphone features across her performance based works to question what we take seriously and what we choose to ignore.

Note: All readings will be provided.

* We encourage BIPOC community members to pay the lowest sliding scale option regardless of economic status. *

 
More information here!

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