Celebrity and the Attention Economy: how popular culture can commodify an audience’s attention

Event

• Monday 6 December 2021  TO BE RESCHEDULED DUE TO ILLNESS
  
• Time: 5.30pm – 7pm     TO BE RESCHEDULED DUE TO ILLNESS
  
• Pavilion Fusion Cafe, Staffordshire University, College Road, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 2DE
• Register at https://www.staffs.ac.uk/events/2021/12/profs-in-the-pav-autumn-series-2021-2

Professor Ian Brown will base his presentation on a series of artworks produced as part of artists’ group Common Culture (Ian Brown, David Campbell, Mark Durden). The work uses appropriation and the ready-made to engage audiences in a critical assessment of a celebrity culture which functions by commodifying its audience’s attention, leading to questions on its cultural and social value.

OMG I love common culture !!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️  and ME, The Total Show were made in response to an American internet celebrity who capitalized on the intimate relationship he had built with his online followers by trademarking the name ‘Common Culture’ to brand, promote and sell a range of products.  The Die Raum gallery was turned into a Common Culture shopfront, with logo, weblink and an accumulation of graphic stickers based on the online posts of the celebrity’s fan base. The Rampa gallery collates appropriated and translated material into an enclosed interior space for consumption. The two exhibitions involve a parodic mimicry of the internet celebrity’s commodification of his audience, himself and his products. This explores how the aesthetics, interactions and transactional intimacy built by internet personalities are ruthlessly deployed to convert followers into consumers and attention capital. 

OMG I love common culture!!!!♥♥♥♥ Die Raum, Berlin, Germany. 29^th Feb — 19^th April 2020 

Gallery Website: http://www.dieraum.net/index.php?/exhibitions/2020-0045-common-culture/

ME, The Total Show Rampa, Porto, Portugal 30^th April – 29^th May 2021

Gallery Website: https://www.rampa.pt/event/me-the-total-show/