FACESTRIKE: FACEBOOK UPSIDE DOWN FOR THE IDENTITY STRIKE

FaceStrike, an operation of media sabotage: hundreds of users have exchanged and are still exchanging the image of their own profile with that of their friends or other acquaintances. By MAV (the Movement for Vaporized Art) and Net.Futurism.

Roma, 09/04/2012 (informazione.it - comunicati stampa - arte e cultura)

Facebook as it had never been seen until now. In the social network that has made the face its own emblem, something has changed since April 3rd, 2012. The fault lies with FaceStrike, an operation of media sabotage: hundreds of users have exchanged and are still exchanging the image of their own profile with that of their friends or other acquaintances (sometimes even without asking for permission). The impression for the users themselves is of big confusion: because of the structure itself of facebook, in fact, each message appears with the user’s name and last name and his/her face, which is no longer matching the real one now. Someone has even thought of a delayed April Fool joke, but then various announcements and claims have made clear the organized nature of the operation.

The FaceStrike - as we can read on the blogs and websites of the two avant-garde movements that first have promoted it, MAV (the Movement for Vaporized Art) and Net.Futurism – is an identity strike which promotes a denial of the usual identification of the individual with his/her own face. The polemic is directed primarily against facebook narcissistic drift, but it promises to extend to the whole web and even to the old media. As we read on the operation facebook group: "We start from facebook to get ... wherever we want!".