Politics of Emotional Life on Social Media | Curator Nupur Doshi in Conversation with Artist Tasneem Lohani

Curator Nupur Doshi and Artist Tasneem Lohani discuss themes from Lohani's solo exhibition, 'It's taking longer to download that it was to puke up' currently on view at Fulcrum, Bombay. Engaging with platform politics, social media and the impact of platform design on how humans communicate in digital spaces as these new etiquettes and behaviours translate to the IRL. Oorja Garg writes about Lohani's work in the show, "In an era of pervasive digitality, networked software has become embedded in the infrastructure of everyday life. Accessed through black mirrors of varying sizes, it now permeates the basis of human interaction, generating a paradoxical condition in which the presence of others can be continuously felt while one remains alone. Underlying these interactions is a networked logic composed of links and nodes, structured through vectoral mapping and visualization of a shared connectivity. Flickering lights on these glass surfaces, along with icons, buttons, notifications, and many more user interface elements, are built to map behavioral patterns and engineer sustained engagement. Lohani’s work dissects this imagery and its underlying infrastructure that has influenced our perception and how we relate to the world.In the times when one can befriend an agreeable AI, Lohani does not attempt to resolve contradictions. Instead, she invites a return to memories of early encounters with the internet, to the desire for connection that shaped them and asks to re-consider our relationship with these systems now."This episode is a recording of an artist talk that took place at Fulcrum, Bombay during the opening weekend of Lohani's show. Special thanks to Fulcrum, Bombay for hosting this conversation.