#publicgallery exhibition booklet

#publicgallery @public_ gallery_

A one-day exhibition of questionable Instagram uploads, raising the question: how public are our lives?

How public are our lives?

As we increasingly rely on the internet for social interaction, the line between online and offline is blurring; with the convenience of social media apps, is the ease of sharing compromising our privacy? #publicgallery explores the culture of online sharing. The exhibition highlights the potential consequences of sharing our lives publicly, and questions whether the default privacy settings are considered by the user.

Our developing relationship with technology, specifically social media and the infatuation of sharing intimate parts of our lives, is explored within the exhibition. Taking publicly accessible images from the internet and putting them into a physical gallery space illustrates the reality of how visible uploaded content is.

Social media is a phenomenon that has taken off at an alarming rate; the technology is still in its infancy, and as users we may need to give consideration towards what we share with each other and the companies who own the data.

The gallery has been divided into four sections to illustrate the expansive way our own social interaction could be perceived by others.

Although the gallery has been divided into categories there are clear crossovers between each section.

The Law Uploads that could attract attention from the police

Disrespect Uploads that could offend or aggravate

Employer Uploads that could jeapordise your employment

Overshare Content that would have been private pre-social media

Consequences The UK’s first youth police and crime commissioner, Paris Brown, resigned from her post following criticism of messages she posted on Twitter. The Tweets she posted between the ages of 14 and 16 could be considered racist and anti-gay.

William McDowell was arrested and charged with cruelty to animals after a video was uploaded to the internet, showing McDowell beating a duck to death with a baseball bat.

Matt Watson was fired because he was writing about his place of employment online during work hours. His blog chronicled all the annoying facets of being a barista.

Emma Way was arrested and found guilty of two charges after she Tweeted about clipping a cyclist with her car earlier in the day.

Carly McKinney, a secondary school teacher, was fired after her employers discovered her Twitter account where she posted racy photos and Tweets about marajuana.

A psychologist’s view Sharing online has become a cultural trend and I think it’s very concerning; I hope that it stops. People have to take responsibility for it. The best explanation I’ve ever heard about this, is that people need to think of it the way they would think of a tattoo; it’s very easy to get a tattoo but it’s very hard to get rid of them, and it’s the same thing here – it’s very, very hard to get rid of something that you put online.

One of two things is going to happen; either the sharing culture will get so prevalent that it becomes normal, or it’s going to have some very bad effects because people say all kinds of things online that can be devastating in the wrong context. In, say, 10 years from now you’re looking to get into a particular field where this kind of thing would be a black mark against you, there’s no erasing it.

I could see it coming up in divorce trials for example, I could see it coming up with custody of kids, I could see it coming up when people apply for tenure at certain universities. The lack of long-term thinking is the thing that concerns me more than anything else.

I think that it’s a matter of keeping your private thoughts to yourself.

There are always ways that people did things like this – I’ve been writing popular psychology books since 1989 and I’ve been on talk shows, it always amazed me how they would get people to come on these shows and talk about a spouse’s abusing behaviour or having promiscuous sex or whatever it would be.

The internet is not going to go away and I suspect that these things are going to become even more prevalent than they are now. I suspect that it’s going to become easier to post, easier to get yourself into these situations, and harder to undo them.

Interview conducted with Michael S. Broder, PhD, a renowned psychologist and bestselling author on 22nd April 2014.

It used to be that people had a way of dealing with the world that was basically, ‘I have a feeling, I want to make a call.’ Now I would capture a way of dealing with the world, which is: ‘I want to have a feeling, I need to send a text.’ – Sherry Turkle

Twitter is a great place to tell the world what you’re thinking before you’ve had a chance to think about it. – Chris Pirillo

Neither privacy nor publicity is dead, but technology will continue to make a mess of both. – Danah Boyd

Every ceo of a social network should be required to use the default privacy settings for all of their accounts on the service.

– Anil Dash

Statistics Facebook Approximately 210 Million Facebook users have public viewable profiles.

Half of employers reject a potential employee after looking at their profile page.

Instagram 60 Million photos are shared on Instagram everyday, that’s 694 photos every second.

Instagram are entitled to request a user’s photo id if violations of their terms of service are suspected.

Twitter There are over 288 Million monthly active users on Twitter.

60% of Twitter users access it from a mobile device.

Contributors Jacklyngraces traylennis up2morenotches jena3point7 curly_turtle dregsoflife xoxvicky1 ahealthyanus georgism chrisp314 ddominaator carlospro2 jbrody850 krkrow onlyasianfeet josh_nvus_dc5

#publicgallery @public_ gallery_