Bad Object: The Digital Politics of Aestheticism in the Instagram Age

Abstract

Within the past decade, immersive multi-sensory exhibitions have swept across the art world. From exhibitions like the Museum of Ice Cream and the wndr museum, the Color Factory, 29 rooms, and the Rosé Mansion, to short-lived trendy pop-ups in previously empty storefronts and warehouses, the art-based experience economy has exploded. Coinciding with technological advancement and society’s ever-growing obsession with social media, as well as a pervasive fear of missing out (FOMO), these experience exhibitions have solidified their place within social spheres as a new form of entertainment. "Bad Object: The Digital Politics of Aestheticism in the Instagram Age" uses the theoretical framework developed in Walter Benjamin's essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," to analyze the distinction between aestheticizing politics and politicizing aesthetics regarding new forms of art and their relationship to social media platforms.