Social media has been at the heart of a radical critique over the past few years – one I mostly agree with. A new exhibition – and salvo in this critique – at London’s HTTP Gallery of Annie Abrahams’ mostly telepresence performances attempts to make real and visceral the frequent feelings of agitation, confusion, and apprehension that permeate our communication (attempts?) within our vast, highly mediated, technology-enabled and constrained social networks. By focusing on glitches, incomplete understanding, partial revelation, and the inevitable mutation of meaning, sense, and shared experience, Abrahams lays bare the often overlooked/ignored side of interfaced relationships.

Watching Abrahams’ creations (or maybe situations) is an exercise in abstraction, one that forces the participant to reveal what’s beyond the easy mental construct we’ve developed in an effort to integrate the ‘new social’ into our lives. It’s much the same as looking at the dog or cat curled-up on your lap, and forcing your mind to see it for what it is: a highly-carnivorous thick-furred four-legged mammal who is able to wander around your house at will. Objectively…probably not something we’d want, much like the aggravation of misunderstood expressions or awkward silences of mediated ‘friendship’. Yet, there is the cat; there is the list of friends.

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