Big Dada
In the aftermath of the 2019 UK election, marred by misinformation, fake news and unregulated forms of computational propaganda, we present a timely focus on artists Bill Posters and Daniel Howe’s Big Dada.
Bringing together a series of series of ‘deep fake’ character studies, including a number of hacked celebrity ‘influencers’, Big Dada was released as a digital intervention on Instagram that went viral. This led to global press coverage and unexpected – and contradictory – official responses from Facebook, Instagram and Youtube. Dropping in references to ‘Spectre’, a fictional tech company named after the online persona of Dr Aleksandr Kogan – the scientist who sold 87 million Facebook profiles to Cambridge Analytica – the videos create a space for an exploration of the deeper ethical and moral implications that exist concerning the interconnected logics of Dataism and Psychopolitics.
Alongside the deep fakes we showcase the transcript of Facebook’s response to the work and a mirror etched with assembled newspaper headlines, further revealing how Bill Posters and Daniel Howe utilise art to critically interrogate the power of these new forms of computational propaganda.
Admission free.
