Art Meets Radical Openness Research Lab with S()fia Braga
S()fia’s research within the AMRO Research Lab 2023 was presented through multiple output formats. With Radio FRO we produced a radio podcast about on labor dynamics on social media with focus on Tiktok published on 1st May. S()fia analized the connection between dynamics of Surveillance Capitalism, Interveillance and the Dark Forest Theory of the Internet* in an article published at Die Versorgerin. In the workhop “A guide to disruptive UGC (User-Generated Content)” the participants explored how to subvert the practices of UGC and infiltrate digital production with subversive content. The diagram poster Platform Workshippers and the related glossary of archetypes visualizes and describes the current landscape of online influencer practices.
*Note: This refers to “The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet” by Bogna Konior, that observes the toxic visibility dynamics of the internet (and particularly social media) as populated by predator and pray dynamics.
Artist’s Bio:
S()fia Braga is a transmedia artist who develops her artistic research on the social impact and subversion of centralised social media platforms, experimenting with new technologies to conceive speculative fabulations that deal with topics such as Interveillance, transhumanism and non-human agency. Her identity constantly changes and goes hand in hand with the narratives she creates: over the last few years she has been an artist, a cyberstalker, a transhumanist entrepreneur, an AI Auteur, a TikToker and has mutated several times into a monstrous creature. In 2022 she won the Bank Austria Studios Award and the Kunstförderpreise der Stadt Linz for the New Media Art category. Her works have been exhibited at Ars Electronica Festival (AT), Xie Zilong Photography Museum (CN), XII Video Vortex Conference (MT), WRO Media Art Biennale (PL), Deutsche Bank (IT), Schlossmuseum Linz (AT), Pinacoteca Albertina di Torino (IT) and more. You can visit S()fia Braga’s website here
✧Article: Shipwrecked in the Dark Forest
A first output of the Research Lab 2023 is an article for the June issue of the Versorgerin, the magazine of the Stadtwerkstatt.
Here, S()fia Braga delves into the control dynamics enabled by centralised social media platforms’ operational structures and their sociological implications. Her advice for navigating the internet is a mindset of traversing through a dark forest, carefully balancing between visibility and deception.
✧Podcast: Hustle till burn it
servus.at AMRO Research Lab 2023 // Radio show Hustle till burn it: TikTok, Labour and Phonk For the first of May transmedia artist S()fia Braga, in conversation with servus.at cultural program coordinator Davide Bevilacqua and Pia Putz (Radio Fro), breaks down different forms of labour within TikTok, today’s most popular social media platform.
✧Platform Workshippers
The Platform Workshippers is the 3rd project created by S()fia Braga as a result of her research within the Research Lab 2023 and it was presented during BestOFF 2023 at the University of Arts Linz. It consists of 2 prints on metal plates: the Platform Workshippers and a Glossary, where the different Workshipper-users are described. Inspired by the Kabbalah’s Tree of Life, the new types of work/trends are placed on a diagram, which in this case represents the different emanations of the current work-reality, which are both creation and vital part of social media platforms. The term Workshippers is a neologism that comes from the combination of the words “worship” and “work”. By creating this term, S()fia Braga wants to highlight “how, within the platform, the boundary between one’s private and professional life becomes completely blurred, triggering new forms of exploitation and precariousness”. It is part of her wider research on topics such as participatory control (interveillance), emerging forms of free labour and strategies for carefully positioning oneself between visibility and deception.
✧Workshop: A Guide to Disruptive UGC (User-Generated Content)
A Guide to Disruptive UGC (User -Generated Content)’ was the final activity produced by S()fia Braga during her artistic research in the AMRO Research Lab 2023. The workshop took place in October 2023 at the Department of Time-Based Media of the Art University of Linz and was open to all students of the different departments of the university. During the two-day workshop, the participants, together with the artist, explored the use of UGC (User – Generated Content) on social media platforms (mainly on TikTok) as a new marketing strategy to effectively promote and sell products to other users. The first part of the workshop focused on the challenges posed by UGC culture and the new forms of free labour that are emerging. Participants were also given examples of guerrilla tactics aimed at undermining this dynamic. In the second part of the workshop, students were invited to form small groups and create short videos exploring alternative and/or creative ways of using online transmedia storytelling.
*Extract from the workshop’s open call:
“In today’s social media landscape, we’ve adapted to the constant bombardment of advertisement. Brands and companies, recognizing this shift in consumer behavior, have sought new ways to capture our attention. Gone are the days when polished advertisements held our interest; we now yearn for authenticity. This realization has given birth to UGC creators- users who craft content similar to traditional UGC (User-Generated Content) while aiding brands in promoting their products. During the initial phase of the workshop, we’ll delve into the intricacies of social media control dynamics placing a special emphasis on the challenges posed by UGC marketing strategies and the emergence of novel forms of free labor, with a focus on platforms like TikTok. We will look into various artistic practices that aim to subvert social media platforms dynamics and disrupt the user experience through online guerrilla tactics, and we will delve into some of the most relevant internet trends and subcultures to prepare ourselves to create our own subversive UGC. Throughout the workshop, participants are invited to create short videos in which they will subvert the conventional narrative we’ve grown accustomed to on centralized social media platforms, while exploring alternative and creative ways of using online transmedia storytelling.”