Routers, Offline Network, Video, Appropriation, Online Culture, Street Tags
There is a disfigured area in the exhibition space. Can you see it? Reach it.
Take your smartphone out of your pocket, oh, it’s already in your hand.
By connecting to the routers you can watch the videos I Stalk Myself more than I Should and Welcome to My Channel.
Next to the routers you will find a smartphone showing a video, Die Verwandlung, a psychological horror movie made for Instagram stories format and meant to die in 24h.
The series of videos investigates appropriation, improper use of private content published on the internet and online nihilism. Description of each project in the exhibition space (Signage): Die Verwandlung (2020) | Project commissioned by TBD Ultramagazine during Corona outbreak | Online exhibition
Braga's artistic research uses digital devices to investigate the relationship between the real and the virtual. Always interested in the addictive effect caused by the flow of technological data, with the project Die Verwandlung the artist conceives an irregular and syncopated narration that can be used on the Instagram page and on the TBD Ultramagazine website. The project is structurally conceived as a film but is measured by the time limit of Instagram stories. The subjective videos speak of an increasingly occlusive and disturbing domestic repetitiveness, which lets the disturbance nestled within the walls of the house emerge. A series of interventions inserted in post-production amplify the feeling of disturbance already suggested by shots of body metamorphosis. Additionally, as normally happens in Instagram's stories, the narration is interrupted by advertisements that advertise consumer objects and distract the viewer by making the work fragmented. The structure of the video is both linear and ambiguous: the work remains open at the end, offering the user the possibility to choose between several options and, consequently, to modify the conclusion. Obsessive repetitiveness, sense of anguish and alienation of domestic space are reduced to a dimension of playfulness, at the same time real and surreal. The project refers to the playful dimension of interactive video in which the role of the user becomes fundamental in the creation of the work itself. Welcome To My Channel (2020) | project exhibited within the exhibition "Recalculating. Computing territories and their analog actuators" curated by Davide Bevilacqua | Gorizia (IT)
Sofia Braga’s work is based on the appropriation of video vlogs downloaded from some of the most widespread online platforms, in which young people confess intimate and confidential aspects of their existence online, including experiences linked to their diagnosed mental disorders.
The editing of these materials follows the typical format of this kind of digital product: an introduction, a presentation of the topic of the video and, at the end, an invitation to follow the channel. Within this virtual context, mental health is just another tool to be employed within the dynamics of self-narrative on social media.
Personal narratives are confused with self-promotion and the promotion of potential sponsors, thus becoming very difficult to trace the boundaries between reality and fiction. I Stalk Myself more than I Should (2019) project exhibited at Ars Electronica Festival 2019, XII Video Vortex conference (La Valletta, MT). It will be exhibited at Share Festival 2020 – Riots, Here We Are, Turin, (IT) and Ibrida Festival 2020, Forlì (IT) (postponed due Corona Outbreak).
There is a narcissistic aspect in surveillance which empowers internet users to monitor their behaviours daily, overcoming the fear of being observed. The sharing of structured, rationalized and complex intimate contents positions users in a digital (p)anopticon. This content is not easily read and is subject to multiple interpretation, hence it’s possible to find various starting points for speculative stories. I Stalk Myself More Than I Should is an archive of expired memories that were meant to die within 24 hours. The work displays a selection of Instagram Stories preserved through the use of screen recordings. Going against the nature of this feature, the project investigates appropriation, interpretation and representation, as well as qualities and hierarchies of human memories shared and stored online. Sofia Braga
(Parma, 1991) is an Italian artist and cyberstalker based in Linz. She develops her artistic research at the intersection between Digital, Post-Digital practices and cyberstalking, focusing on the materiality of the web and the social impact of web interfaces. She graduated in Visual Arts (BA, MA) at the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna and is currently attending the Interface Cultures master program. In 2019 she curated the Internet Yami-Ichi at Ars Electronica Festival and its first Italian edition in Bologna. Her works have been exhibited at Ars Electronica Festival, The Wrong – The New Digital Art Biennale, Pinacoteca Albertina di Torino, Deutsche Bank (Milan), Xie Zilong Photography Museum (China), XII Video Vortex Conference (Malta), Speculum Artium (Slovenia), Link Cabinet (Italy) and more. Interface Cultures Exhibition - Ars Electronica Festival 2020
Take your smartphone out of your pocket, oh, it’s already in your hand.
By connecting to the routers you can watch the videos I Stalk Myself more than I Should and Welcome to My Channel.
Next to the routers you will find a smartphone showing a video, Die Verwandlung, a psychological horror movie made for Instagram stories format and meant to die in 24h.
The series of videos investigates appropriation, improper use of private content published on the internet and online nihilism. Description of each project in the exhibition space (Signage): Die Verwandlung (2020) | Project commissioned by TBD Ultramagazine during Corona outbreak | Online exhibition
Braga's artistic research uses digital devices to investigate the relationship between the real and the virtual. Always interested in the addictive effect caused by the flow of technological data, with the project Die Verwandlung the artist conceives an irregular and syncopated narration that can be used on the Instagram page and on the TBD Ultramagazine website. The project is structurally conceived as a film but is measured by the time limit of Instagram stories. The subjective videos speak of an increasingly occlusive and disturbing domestic repetitiveness, which lets the disturbance nestled within the walls of the house emerge. A series of interventions inserted in post-production amplify the feeling of disturbance already suggested by shots of body metamorphosis. Additionally, as normally happens in Instagram's stories, the narration is interrupted by advertisements that advertise consumer objects and distract the viewer by making the work fragmented. The structure of the video is both linear and ambiguous: the work remains open at the end, offering the user the possibility to choose between several options and, consequently, to modify the conclusion. Obsessive repetitiveness, sense of anguish and alienation of domestic space are reduced to a dimension of playfulness, at the same time real and surreal. The project refers to the playful dimension of interactive video in which the role of the user becomes fundamental in the creation of the work itself. Welcome To My Channel (2020) | project exhibited within the exhibition "Recalculating. Computing territories and their analog actuators" curated by Davide Bevilacqua | Gorizia (IT)
Sofia Braga’s work is based on the appropriation of video vlogs downloaded from some of the most widespread online platforms, in which young people confess intimate and confidential aspects of their existence online, including experiences linked to their diagnosed mental disorders.
The editing of these materials follows the typical format of this kind of digital product: an introduction, a presentation of the topic of the video and, at the end, an invitation to follow the channel. Within this virtual context, mental health is just another tool to be employed within the dynamics of self-narrative on social media.
Personal narratives are confused with self-promotion and the promotion of potential sponsors, thus becoming very difficult to trace the boundaries between reality and fiction. I Stalk Myself more than I Should (2019) project exhibited at Ars Electronica Festival 2019, XII Video Vortex conference (La Valletta, MT). It will be exhibited at Share Festival 2020 – Riots, Here We Are, Turin, (IT) and Ibrida Festival 2020, Forlì (IT) (postponed due Corona Outbreak).
There is a narcissistic aspect in surveillance which empowers internet users to monitor their behaviours daily, overcoming the fear of being observed. The sharing of structured, rationalized and complex intimate contents positions users in a digital (p)anopticon. This content is not easily read and is subject to multiple interpretation, hence it’s possible to find various starting points for speculative stories. I Stalk Myself More Than I Should is an archive of expired memories that were meant to die within 24 hours. The work displays a selection of Instagram Stories preserved through the use of screen recordings. Going against the nature of this feature, the project investigates appropriation, interpretation and representation, as well as qualities and hierarchies of human memories shared and stored online. Sofia Braga
(Parma, 1991) is an Italian artist and cyberstalker based in Linz. She develops her artistic research at the intersection between Digital, Post-Digital practices and cyberstalking, focusing on the materiality of the web and the social impact of web interfaces. She graduated in Visual Arts (BA, MA) at the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna and is currently attending the Interface Cultures master program. In 2019 she curated the Internet Yami-Ichi at Ars Electronica Festival and its first Italian edition in Bologna. Her works have been exhibited at Ars Electronica Festival, The Wrong – The New Digital Art Biennale, Pinacoteca Albertina di Torino, Deutsche Bank (Milan), Xie Zilong Photography Museum (China), XII Video Vortex Conference (Malta), Speculum Artium (Slovenia), Link Cabinet (Italy) and more. Interface Cultures Exhibition - Ars Electronica Festival 2020
