PLANET HYPE
Moti - Museum Of The Image
March 2016

Hypes have a hold on our lives and the media. Whether big or small, they appear out of the blue and connect us, people, in a confusing world where we can hardly filter world news, where social media turn us into activists and advertising agencies use hypes as tools in the battle for supermarket dominance.
The exhibition Planet Hype presents a contemporary phenomenon: the hype. In a world that increasingly revolves around media, sharing images, spreading news and browsing the internet for the next scoop, hypes can suddenly emerge. Hypes are capable of instantly dominating the world's attention.

From all the hypes shown during the exhibition I chose #BringBackOurGirls. It happened to be the international womens day yesterday and I wanted to know more about it. During my research I found out that this campaign originally started for the abducted girls in Nigeria and went viral through the rest of the world. The article* is questioning if the hashtag campaign actually had an impact on the missing girls or that it was just another clickable hype. 
As a reaction I created this layered and distorted image questioning the interpretation of the campaign. It's great to create awareness and let people see what happens in this world when you look further than your local Starbucks. But I feel female celebrities and blogger don't only post it to spread awareness, but more to show their followers that "they care". Can you use the hashtag for other problems involving females? What part of the world will be benefitted by this campaign the most? The girls are still missing...

This image is a still of a composition/collage created with Adobe After Effects. I made layers of all the #BringBackOurGirls images from the exhibition and distorting their displacement. To bring attention to the hype itself I created a 3D layer which holds a small fragment of the image. 

*http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/14/nigeria-bringbackourgirls-campaign-one-year-on