Life Hacks
(and Other Embodied Technologies)
New Media and Performance Video
by Laura Gillmore, Faith Holland, and Laura Hyunjhee Kim
January 17th – February 29th, 2020
Video Documentation
From the diets, exercise routines, make-up tips, and self-help psychology, proffered in lifestyle videos, Internet “how-to’s” and influencer promotions; to the cell phone apps, Smart homes, and other data-tracking technologies that now quantify and analyze everyday experience; contemporary televisual culture is rife with techniques, designed to help organize, manage, and ultimately give direction to life with the promise of greater efficiency and fulfillment.
The artists in this show take up and engage these “life hacks.” How have they, indeed, changed the way we live? What do they reveal about our values and aspirations in their conflation of techno-utopianism and the culture of self-improvement? How is their instrumentalization of everyday life tied to the appeal for popularity on social media and the ubiquitous commodification of the new economy? And how are they brought be bear, specifically, on the organization and experience of the body?