Affect Me

The way we deal with images has dramatically changed in the age of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Co. Images circulating on digital networks have become the most significant means of personal expression for an extended public. The interactive component of Web 2.0 offers a new dialogue-based space in which users can communicate almost in real time. The posts include banal moments from the user's life as well as visual evidence from the trouble spots of current global crises. The images move the user; they are "liked" en masse or provoke protests, induce criticism or unrestrained attacks; they instigate public debates and appear to create a sense of community. This situation is where the exhibition, "Affect Me. Social Media Images in Art", is rooted. It presents works from nine international artistic positions that refer to the new phenomena of social media imagery and select particular pictorial material that draws its energy from the context of global political conflicts and civil-social protest on the net. Their work reflects the usage and the semantics of these images as well as considering their aesthetic qualities. They elucidate the mobilising power of the images and demonstrate how these images create facts and thereby operate along the porous border between reality and fiction.