Disembodybutter Installation View

Disembodybutter.

PNCA MFA Visual Studies Thesis Installation May/June 2018. Shot/Documented by Mario Gallucci.

Identity, now tasked with aesthetically transmitting the nature of the inner self, potentially for gain in the economy of attention, exists concurrently online and off. Social media users possess the power and means to optimize their appearance for a variety of different audiences, accruing influence and power in highly specified digital subcultures — subcultures which take little more than an outfit, a makeup style, and a smartphone to claim membership. Disembodybutter seeks to investigate, engage, and critique the selfie as a site of identity performance, examining the fragmentation of identity which occurs when self-imagery gains more importance in the quest for cultural capital than IRL physical selfhood.

Social Media makes performance artists out of all of us. Disembodybutter asks "who are you performing for?"