24 Hour Photo People

AKA Flickr, Facebook, and other sharing sites.

Social media has been such a buzz term in photography in recent years, and part of that buzz has been around how artists are using the internet to appropriate or repurpose images and data for their creative efforts.

And now FOAM have dipped a toe into this flickriver, with an installation by Erik Kessels that features a sea of images printed from Flickr. Everything uploaded to that site in a 24-hour period, in fact.

I think it’s a seriously interesting use of these images, and one that works on many levels. It does feel awkward only being able to view it through the internet though – I doubt I’ll have a surprise trip to Amsterdam to experience it in the print before it closes. And the debate I’m having about the show is also conducted entirely online, with other people who are unlikely to see it in print. And some great points have been made, but all on a platform (Twitter) that is notoriously bad for archiving a series of linked comments. Just as digital sharing of single images isn’t the same thing as sitting down with a stack of prints to make e.g. a photobook. There’s a strange sense of circularity to all of that.

Big thanks to James Dodd for pointing my attention to this interesting exhibition, and also to Richard Bram, Charlie Kirk, and Pete Carr, for the debate we had about the exhibition via Twitter.

Some of the thoughts from that Twitter convo – please note, the 140char limit of that platform necessarily means these comments may not be fully fleshed out, so give their authors’ a little license on interpreting the strength of sentiment)

James Dodd: just give people more reasons to leave flickr then: another artist uses flickr’s contents as a base for their work.
Charlie Kirk: jumping in, if you are on Flickr you might be part of it! I find it disrespectful and arrogant.
Charlie Kirk: looked like trash to me. But if people could wade through and see the images it’s kinda cool.
James Dodd: representable of our disposable society? reality is that’s probably the only time those images will be printed.
James Dodd: I imagine the same effect could have been achieved with blank pieces of paper? are the images themselves important?
Me: I had that same thought on reading/seeing it – blank pages could symbolise. Interesting use of web tho
Pete Carr: i think the fact that its a huge number of printed pics that would never be printed means more
James Dodd: it would also have helped represent what the images will never be for most, physical objects.
Me: agreed, & avoids the “oh did I get picked?” eagerness/naivety of many flikr types, I’d bet most people whose pics are used in that wouldn’t register the point of it & would just wanna know if they’ve been featured in a gallery so they can tell all their flikr friends they’ve been ‘recognised’ (multi-tweet, and cynical)