9 Hysterical Media Truths You’ll Never Believe!

These days, adding a ‘#’ to a word plants a seed of contagion. In certain instances it results in remedial collective action, else in compulsive or agitated actions. These political obligations and paranoid hysterias are impelled by visibility, ‘likes’, but also authentic intention and the need for change. ‘#’ as a seed, a nucleator, a trigger and a technical operator, now orients ambiguous individual reflection and mass reactivity. #thotaudit, #pizzaGate, #kony2012 colonise our social media streams (re)producing feedback and (re)posts. To much different ends #metoo or #occupy move people to express feelings, or to take action. This public afternoon workshop takes up, investigates, studies and invents ambiguous and ambitious proposals, “hysterical” media, (re)creating compulsive, compelling, cognitive loops. Submitted prior (https://hysteria.ixdm.ch/) and developed through the workshop itself, each ‘#’ will form part of a collectively authored reflexive publication.

A workshop with Critical Media Lab Basel interlocutors: Merle Ibach, Yann Martins, Jamie Allen, Shintaro Miyazaki, Felix Gerloff.