For this digital performance, I created an account on Instagram (@toaster.reposter) that reposts the same image of one of the toaster pieces from Twelve Toasters (2021). The original work was made by sewing my own hair into a photograph of a toaster—a labor-intensive and time consuming process. With Toaster Reposter, I screenshot the previous post and repost it. The image compression from uploading to Instagram causes each post to be imperceptibly different to the one before, effects that create remarkable change over dozens and hundreds of reposts. The loss of quality in digital copies is called "generation loss."
Toaster Reposter and its central concept of "generation loss" questions our lack of consciousness around how and where images are copied and transferred and archived in digital spaces. I started this performance piece before the rise of NFTs caused visual artists to fear that sharing their work freely online might put them at risk for having the digital image title stolen and sold off before they could be aware. The democratization of images via social media—invitations to experience artworks that were previously unavailable to many due to barriers of poverty, distance, disability, threat of violence—has been so revolutionary that we easily lose track of corporate and white supremacist interests that guide algorithms and use the flood of "content" to overwhelm us.
Instagram and social media are, by nature, tools of generational loss. Their promenant role in contemporary societies erases the structures for communication and connection that existed before. Often, we forget that previous iterations of forums and influence and self-publication ever existed.