QUEER VISIBILITY ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Curated by Dunja Nesovic

2 November 2023

Tickets

Queer representation received a massive boost from the rise of social media over the past decade. Queer communities are moving away from traditional media, like television and newspapers, that either ignore them or portray them in stereotypical, negative or heteronormative ways. They are now gravitating to platforms such as Instagram and TikTok to reclaim their representational agency. This panel will examine the latest forms of queer visibility on social media and the relationship between online platforms and their users. The conversation will focus on how Instagram and TikTok encourage performative self-representation and how this fits with Big Tech’s modes of control and commodification of queer identities.

Queer Visibility on Social Media comprises a performance lecture by Ezra Šimek titled No offense, but, vol. 2, followed by a panel talk. Šimek will be joined by European Parliament member Kim van Sparrentak. Simek’s performance opens up the discussion on the importance of freedom of queer representation on social media in facilitating queer liberation within and beyond these digital spaces. As well as representation, this panel explores algorithmic surveillance, platform governance and the commodification of identities. Kim van Sparrentak will offer her expertise on EU legislation concerning LGBTQIA+ issues, the development of AI, and digital platforms. The panellists will advance the conversation about queer visibility on social media by contextualising it within the overlooked mechanisms of platform governance and exploitation. They will also propose ways in which user agency, legislation and regulation could support increased safety and empowerment for queer communities online.

TICKET FOR THIS PROGRAMME

What else is on Thursday?

Check the timetable to visit more programmes with your Festival Pass (5-days) or Day Pass (1-day). With the passes you can also visit the festival exhibition Our Terms, Our Conditions at the IMPAKT [Centre for Media Culture] and Fotodok/Casco.

Thursday day pass 5-day festival pass

For more information on the festival tickets please see here

Dunja Nešović Ezra Šimek

Dunja Nešović

― Curator

Dunja Nešović is a new media researcher, focused on exploring the notions of (queer) visibility, networked image, and algorithmic imaginaries in the social media sphere. Graduated with a Research MA in Critical Studies in Art and Culture at Vrije Universiteit in 2021, she wrote and edited publications for the Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam and Tijdschrift Kunstlicht, and has presented her research for the Screen Walk, a project organized by The Photographer’s Gallery in London and Fotomuseum Winterthur.

Ezra Šimek

― Speaker

Ezra Šimek graduated in Photography (Studio of New Aesthetic) from Prague’s Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and now continues with their MA in TransArts at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Digital Media and Moving Image Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna as well as an MA in contemporary art theory at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Slovakia. In their work, Ezra primarily deals with queer identity politics and sensitivity around language, presented through various time-based media (film, performative lecture, computer game) or site-responsive installations, sound works and writing. They explore gender as a societal construct comparable to mythology that attempts to create more fictional narratives and to boost synergy between different shattered realities of our times and fantasy and thus create a new inclusive and speculative reality.

Festival 2023