Renate Ferro and Tim Murray: Viral Seeding and Social Media Marketing: the ‘Return’ of the Oppressed Left (In conjunction with the exhibition “America for Sale” by the Institute of Aesthetic Research) :: October 28, 2009; 6:00 pm :: Exit Art, 475 Tenth Ave, New York City.

Renate Ferro and Tim Murray — co-moderators of the -empyre- listserv and professors of art and new media at Cornell University — will lead a discussion of Viral Seeding and Social Media Marketing: the ‘Return’ of the Oppressed Left. They are interested in the success of viral marketing companies, such as The 7th Chamber or The Viral Factory, that have appropriated complicated interactive technologies to leak and launch products and identify internet users as (un)willing participants in ongoing media campaigns. Their discussion will raise questions about the development of networked multimedia for the aim of enhancing global investment in useless products rather than fostering resistance to the capitalism of the Internet. While acknowledging the few socially progressive campaigns that have benefited from “social” marketing strategies, can there still be a critical web presence for the more critical and socially interventionist new media art initiatives from the 90s and early 2000s? They will question the institutional place of these initiatives within the progressive new media arts community.