03/2019
In the workshop for transmediale 2019, 9 Hysterical Media Truths You’ll Never Believe! are investigated the ways that merely adding a "#" to a word plants a seed of contagion. In certain instances, it results in remedial collective action, or in compulsive or agitated reaction. These political obligations and paranoid hysterias are impelled by visibility, 'likes', but also authentic intention and the need for change. "#" is a seed, a nucleator, a trigger, and a technical operator, now orienting ambiguous individual reflection and mass reactivity. #thotaudit, #pizzaGate, #kony2012 colonize our social media streams (re)producing feedback and (re)posts. To much different ends, #metoo or #occupy move people to express frustration, feelings and to take and compel action. This public workshop takes up, investigates, studies, and invents ambiguous and ambitious proposals, "hysterical" media, (re)creating compulsive, compelling, cognitive loops.
A microsite for the workshop, including a companion essay, reflects the workshop submissions by participants and hosts at hysteria.ixdm.ch. The workshop is hosted by Merle Ibach, Yann Patrick Martins and Felix Gerloff with the support of Jamie Allen and Shintaro Miyazaki and the Critical Media Lab Basel.