Addie Wagenknecht
The perfect cat eye with your zoom date, 21.04.2020
In her new video The perfect cat eye with or without your Zoom date for the HEK Net Works series, American artist Addie Wagenknecht (*1981) takes over the popular makeup tutorial format, common on media channels like YouTube, to instruct the viewer on her beauty routine. However, as she proceeds to apply mascara and lipstick to her face, she takes advantage of this opportunity to talk about security gaps in video communication platforms like Zoom – especially when used for intimate and erotic exchanges – and to propose alternative solutions.
Especially in this time of lockdown, when digital interaction has replaced live contact, new forms of communication are once again raising privacy issues. Exploiting the format of beauty video tutorials, Wagenknecht talks about digital privacy and data security policies, involved in platforms such as Zoom or Whatsapp.
In her artistic practice, Addie Wagenknecht deals with questions related to net culture and cyber security. Liminal Laws, her first solo exhibition in Switzerland presented at HEK in 2016, examined the effects of media technology on society, while also addressing the unequal distribution of access to information among the population. She lives and works in Innsbruck, Austria.