‘Mobilities’ research is very
much concerned with the issue of place. Places are complex and can be
understood as dynamic collages of things, representations and practices
(Cresswell, 2011). In order to have a better understanding of this complex
interplay, Cresswell (2011) suggests to think of places as an assemblage which
has two dimensions. One dimension
connects the material to the expressive. The other connects territorialisation
to deterritorialisation. The latter, he suggests, is characterised by a
destabilising and blurring of boundaries, as well as a level of heterogeneity. He
further suggests that communication technology and computers are very much
considered as part of a ‘deterritorialisation’. Cresswell’s definition of place
is useful when considering social media art spaces that are reflecting traditional museum locations, offering simulated galleries that can be ‘visited’ online, where
the visitor creates his experience through a personalised practice which may
represent real life conditions.[1]
The mobility/mooring dialectic
implies that it is not possible to have the mobile without the support of
systems of immobilities (Sheller and Urry, 2006 a b). In other words: we need
sedentary (or fixed) elements in order to support mobility. In the social
media curating context, users require the IT infrastructure as well as the
artworks in their various locations in order to be able to take part. This
relationship implies various degrees of power that are controlling the mobility
systems. Power and surveillance are important considerations in the mobility
framework (and indeed also in Deleuze and Guattari’s writings) and also affect
the social media curating. Adrian Mackenzie (2011, p. 9) suggests that Science
and Technology Studies (STS) is the discipline which recognises that
‘architectures, machines and texts enable or “afford” the possibility for
certain kinds of mobilities and immobilities.’ Furthermore he suggests that
‘human, non-human and inhuman agents interact via affordances of the spaces,
infrastructures and technologies in and through which they move, pause, dwell
and encounter one another’ (Mackenzie, 2011, p. 9). Mackenzie’s views, informed
by the Actor-Network Theory (Wood and Graham, 2011), illustrate that when
engaging with social media spaces many factors determine the assemblage, from
the Wi-Fi enabled technology, to the materiality of the camera, and the social
media features for uploading the artworks. Indeed the visibility of the curated
artworks is affected by human, non-human and inhuman determinants.
‘… the heterogeneous, uneven and unpredictable mobilities of people, information, objects, money, images and risks, that move chaotically across regions in strikingly faster and unpredictable shapes … (T)hese global fluids demonstrate no clear point of departure or arrival, just de-territorialized movement or mobility (rhizomatic rather than arboreal)’ (Urry, 2000, p. 194)
Urry's emphasis on de-territorialised movement implies a drifting, an uneasiness with regards to flow, evoking an uncertainty, suggesting that the emphasis, for instance in the case of artworks , is on the unpredictable locations within the social media spaces.
click here if you wish to continue with the literature review
[1] Readers may wish to access the social media app Artstack to view an exhibition by Mark Rothko. Access can only be obtained when signing up or via Facebook.
