Generation You:

The rise of web 2.0 in the mid-2000s promised to democratize culture by putting individual participation center stage. A decade later, we have a more thorough grasp of the specific kind of self-expression that social media offers. On the one hand, it is limiting and restrictive: the users get little, while the platform reaps the benefits of their labor. On the other, it retains the ability to challenge prevailing cultural hierarchies and to facilitate the performance of new kinds of subjectivity. This panel will address a number of questions, including: How has social media influenced art production and remapped its boundaries and power structures? How do artists navigate pressures of commercialization and self-branding? And, what is the status of authenticity amid pervasive performance and self-branding?