Artist Paolo Cirio finds posts by Instagram influencers and exposes them on public walls, in art galleries, and on the project's website Influencers-Watch.org for eveyone to report deceptive and concealed advertising.

Press Release. 11th October, 2019.
Attention, Instagram Influencers Exposed and Deconstructed - Art on Today's Advertising:
https://paolocirio.net/work/attention/



As a form of public action, printed posters by Influencers are posted on walls to return the subtle online advertising to its detectable form:
https://www.flickr.com/gp/[email protected]/DHT8RE

The project’s website allows the public to collect and report deceptive adverts by online influencers, over a hundred are already collected:
https://Influencers-Watch.org

At the gallery Cirio’s artworks on glass make use of the original photographs and enlarged body parts, expressions, poses, and products:
https://paolocirio.net/work/attention/#pics

Recent coverage of the project on the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung:
https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/ratgeber/digital/gefaehrliche-schleichwerbung-wie-ein-italienischer-kuenstler-influencer-entlarvt-33224254

Video interview with Paolo Cirio by Influencer law:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WbQTJcArDs


From Cirio's theoretical text:
"The future battlefield of advertising is its disappearance in everyday life — becoming invisible and yet being highly effective. This series of photographs, appropriated from celebrities as well as micro-influencers, functions as evidence of deceptive advertising and illustrates the visual devices utilized to allure attention. The analysis of photographic language is used to point toward the legal, ethical, and economic nature of the online influencers to discuss the pervasiveness of the attention economy.”
https://paolocirio.net/press/texts/text_attention.php

Recent Cirio's quote:
"The work Attention relates to the legacy of modern art using advertising as material. In the work the visual advertising is appropriated and deconstructed to discuss the aesthetics of today's publicity, within its semantic, economic, and social domains."

From Cirio's reasearch:
A collection of several news articles about the social and legal implications of deceptive advertising by Internet influencers.
https://influencers-watch.org/about/


Credits and partnerships:
Attention is a new project by Paolo Cirio published in September 2019. In collaboration with Influencer Law from Maastricht University & Studio Europa and lead by Catalina Goanta's research study. This series of artworks are currently shown at NOME Gallery in Berlin for Paolo Cirio’s solo show Images Rights:
https://paolocirio.net/press/soloshow_images-rights.php

Attention
Project description:
https://paolocirio.net/work/attention/
This series intervenes in the attention economy of advertising by social media influencers. Particularly looking at the language of the photographic medium on Instagram, Attention appropriated photos by influencers who promoted controversial products without disclosing them as paid advertisements. The work deconstructs how Instagram influencers deploy their own particular language of advertising, and therefore interrogates the arbitrary visuals that determine the value and utility of our attention in becoming commodified. The photos are analyzed by zooming into the visual details to reveal highly constructed photography. The imagery of the narcissistic, sexualized, and idealized self is a performative language of the attention economy that became canonized, both to convey perfection and spontaneity. The image is meant to be familiar, effortless, natural in its fabrication; advertisements seamlessly appear to be authentic life. This artwork aims to break the construction and formality of this photographic language; by decoding the images, their mechanism is highlighted. As a form of public action, printed compositions are posted on walls to return the subtle online advertising to its detectable form. In addition, a website for the project allows the public to collect and report deceptive adverts by online influencers.

Full press kit with material in high resolution:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1teb51x42xqo5e6/AAA8GriVR5I02mVWKu2I5dyba/Attention

Pictures in high resolution and web gallery on Flickr:

More about the artist:

Paolo Cirio - Artist
Web: https://PaoloCirio.net

FL: https://flickr.com/paolocirio
TW: https://twitter.com/paolocirio
LI: https://linkedin.com/in/paolocirio
YT: https://youtube.com/c/paolocirio
FB: https://facebook.com/paolo.cirio.art
IG: https://instagram.com/paolo.cirio.art