Unfriend Me Now!

Abstract

Unfriend Me Now! Kate Durbin (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 289] Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 290] Using the trickster figure of the clown and the white box of the Facebook time-line, Durbin’s short film Unfriend Me Now! (2018) explores rhetorical wars on Facebook over the 2016 U.S. election of Donald Trump. Unfriend Me Now! examines the role of the Facebook algorithm in increasing political polarization, and the co-option of rage by corporate interests. Unfriend Me Now! was created while Durbin was a Digital Studies fellow with Camden-Rutgers University in 2017–2018; it was first presented at OMO art space in Berlin in collaboration with peer to space gallery, and curator Tina Sauerländer; it has also been presented at Projektraum Galerie M in Berlin, for the group exhibition POLE, curated by Elena Kaludova. A 3-channel version of Unfriend Me Now! was screened with Transfer Gallery’s DOWN-LOAD for Spring Break Art Fair in Los Angeles. [End Page 291] Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 293] Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 294] [End Page 295] Click for larger view View full resolution All images courtesy of the artist [End Page 296] Kate Durbin kate durbin is a Los Angeles–based artist, writer, and filmmaker whose work deals with popular culture and digital media. She has shown her work internationally, and her most recent book is E! Entertainment. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Art in America, Art Forum, and elsewhere. You can find out more at www.katedurbin.la. Copyright © 2019 The Massachusetts Review, Inc