My experience of the social media platform Instagram over the last 2.5 years has not been filled with unequivocal joy. I understand that I should get with the times a little bit - "no-one reads long-form criticism anymore" "people communcate mostly with images and experience now", and so on, but I admit I was resistant for a long time. To me, there's nothing like - and will never be anything like - sitting down to read a piece of long-form criticism from someone who really cares about the subject enough to give it their full attention and reflection. Also, there's something self-aggrandising about the platform (and social media genreally) that doesn't fit with the intention of criticism: part of the act of criticism is staying invisible and putting the focus on the artist and their work, which doesn't sit well in the age of personal hyper-branding.
So in launching an Instagram page this week, my intentions are very much to fit my own sqaure peg into that round hole, without, I guess, over-reacting to the age of the influencer. My plan with it is to offer that most difficult of things, "access", as people have very legitimate reasons why they might sideline their critical reading: time and money pressures, lack of attention due to other demands, and simple discomfort at sitting down for an hour with ideas they fear they will not understand. I hope to be able to offer more byte-sized parts of discourse for those without the luxury to spend hours reading and dissecting a text (although in my opinion, it's time well-spent).
In conceiving this trio of lectures, I have been greatly influenced by my colleagues at Cultural Workers Studio - both their support, which motivates me - and the specific nature of their plight. While the 2022 Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine gets a lot of press, it can be a little lacking in other types of attention. There have been a few dedicated events and support for an exchange of ideas around those events in 2022, but I observe a lack of reflection on a cultural level on what I view as a seismic shift in philosophy represented by the last few years. Far from being given adequate attention, these matters seem to have been put into a category where they are viewed as uncomfortable or too difficult.
