Hiding in plain light
There is a growing tendency in media, particularly social media, where content is becoming increasingly sexualised. This includes both overtly sexual content, and content in which sexualisation is embedded. Through algorithms, sexualised content has become normalised. ‘Hiding in plain light’ is a campaign that explores the grey area of social norms and legality, focusing on the tensions surrounding what can be classified as nudity, inappropriate, legal or harmful. A computer algorithm may classify sexualised content as neutral or appropriate and push it into the mainstream, while Pornhub has previously uploaded illegal content within its ‘legal’ site. While some may view the normalisation of sexualised media as a form of empowerment, it also has the capacity to reinforce dangerous behaviours and ideologies that exists within the larger context of sexual violence, exploitation and misogyny. This campaign explores the policing of these norms in all of its complexities and contradictions, to encourage a resistance to being influenced or constructed by the media we consume. By using images that to a human eye can be recognised as sexual, being read neutrally by a machine, it highlights the normalisation of these embedded connotations.
