Reading #3 - Dispersion

For this reading, we were assigned to peruse the syllabus for a course at RISD on experimental publishing. In the syllabus there were five categories: substrate, versions, dispersion, transduction, and balconism. At first looking through these categories on the syllabus I was very confused because it is general in describing what each category meant. Im assuming that each one was a different project the student's had to create and do based on the category and below were examples of some of the projects. The one that caught my eye the most was the third category, which was dispersion. This one caught my attention because the first thing under that category was a quote that stated, "In what sense is posting - to Facebook, for example - publishing or making public?" It then goes on to say that students must distribute a series to a network/channel that could include any message, image, data, or anything the students wanted. They were told that it must be exposed for the first time and it also must interrupt, complicate, or somehow alter the conventions/expectations/algorithms of the network by circulating the project.

I looked through some of the links provided with this prompt and honestly did not understand most of them but one of the projects really stuck out to me. In 2014 a girl named Amelia Ulman decided she wanted to become an Instagram celebrity and researched the cosmetic gaze and the beauty myth and then went on to prepare a script and timeline that she felt followed the rhythm of social media. This was her narrative:

"The provincial girl moves to the big city, wants to be a model, wants money, splits up with her high-school boyfriend, wants to change her lifestyle, enjoys singledom, runs out of money because she doesn’t have a job, because she is too self-absorbed in her narcissism, she starts going on seeking-arrangement dates, gets a sugar daddy, gets depressed, starts doing more drugs, gets a boob job because her sugar daddy makes her feel insecure about her body, and also he pays for it, she goes through a breakdown, redemption takes place, the crazy bitch apologizes, the dumb blonde turns brunette and goes back home. Probably goes to rehab, then she is grounded at her family house."

She was interested in pop culture's obsession with Instagram celebrities that she wanted to see if she could get people to believe her made up story. She even stated in an interview that she told some of her friends that this was fake and was just a type of social experiment but even they started to believe the made up story. This story reminded me of another girl who set up pictures all taken in New York City to make it look like she took a trip to China. She did this by going to China Town in New York and by checking herself into a hotel and taking pictures of exotic food and other stuff like that. Everyone actually believed she was on this trip, which proved her point that people will believe almost anything that they see on the internet. I thought Amelia's experiment was well thought out and very clever and I am very interested in looking into this project more.

http://www.vulture.com/2014/12/how-amalia-ulman-became-an-instagram-celebrity.html