In August

The 24th of August I will curate a session at The Conference (Malmö). This is what we will talk about:

Our social relationships are increasingly sustained and nourished by our digitally extended selves rather than by personal encounters. Social media platforms make the creation of a virtual self possible by manifesting a chosen identity through the pictures we post and the stories we write about our lives, including social as well as personal experiences. It is primarily younger people who have quite an intimate relationship with their digital devices. Are the media industries developing their products with this reality in mind? Current days social critique is arguing that the social media is enhancing a culture of narcissim. Are we in fact returning to the days of the old masters painting when the duty of every portrait artist was to beautify rather than to render a true picture? Is an ’iDentity’ nothing but an old masters painting where the young person is his or her own portrait artist? Isn’t time to break this superficiality and inspire young users to find new routes rather than to re-enter those worn routes of ’self-fiction’ and ’who cares’ attitude. Young people do not have a free choice: they will take what we give them.