Mediation in the Post-Internet Condition

Abstract

This paper examines the dimension of mediation in the post-Internet condition through the postInternet art medium. In the post-Internet condition, human and non-human actors, humans and machines, networks, algorithms and technologies, co-create conditions of life in a hybrid and liquid state of mediation. The paper discusses three important areas of mediatisation as highlights and indicators of the hybrid and multifaceted character of mediation post-Internet. These are mediated publicness, mediated self and mediated trust. The artworks discussed in this paper help illuminate the dynamics, tensions and experiences of contemporary mediation and act as examples of how important the role of mediation is in our understanding of the world and of ourselves in it and how vital it is to continue to explore and critically engage with its processes. Mediation. Mediated publicness. Mediated self. Mediated trust. Post-Internet art. Post-Internet condition. The Status Project , is a study of the construction of our ‘official identities’ and creates what Bunting describes as “…an expert system for identity mutation”. The work explores how information supplied by the public in their interactions with organisations and institutions is logged. The project draws on his direct encounters with specific database collection processes and the information he was obliged to supply in his life as a public citizen in order to access specific services; this includes data collected from the Internet and information found on governmental databases. This data is then used to map and illustrate how we behave, choose things, travel and move around in social spaces.