Facebook and Hate

(source: Art Monthly, Jul-Aug 2010)


"Artist Paul Harfleet has been working on his Pansy Project for several years, planting flowers in the street where there has been an incident of homophobic abuse: he photographs the flowers and titles the images with the grotesque language of the abuse. The project has its own website and, for more than three years, its own group on Facebook. Recently, Harfleet received an email from Facebook informing him that the company has deleted his project's group because it violated the social-networking site's Terms of Use. The email helpfully explained that, 'among other things, groups that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed'. Harfleet generously presumes that Facebook has not intentionally acted with homophobic intent but that some kind of automated software has simply scanned the titles of his images and triggered the action. However, his emails pleading for common sense to prevail have met with machine-like silence. The incident is an object lesson in what may happen when unregulated services offered by private companies become so popular that they resemble national infrastructure."

Still Films

Beginning today, the Irish Film Institute in Dublin presents a week-long season of works by the production company Still Films.

The centrepiece for the season is 'Pyjama Girls', a documentary film by Maya Derrington. It examines the lives of two inner city Dublin teenage girls who roam the streets wearing pyjamas. 'Pyjama Girls' will be showing daily until 26 August.

'The Rooms' is a new short collaborative project by Paul Rowley and Tim Blue, and will have its premiere on 22 August. It's a study of "a world abandoned that continues to operate" and was filmed in Italy, Greece, Germany, Spain, the United States and Korea.

Paul Rowley and Nicky Gogan's feature documentary about asylum seekers living in the former Butlins holiday camp in Mosney (an hour north of Dublin) 'Seaview' will be shown on 21 August. After touring festivals internationally, and in light of recent hunger strikes at Mosney, this is a timely re-screening of 'Seaview' in Ireland.

And on Tuesday 24 August, the founders of Still Films Nicky Gogan, Maya Derrington and Paul Rowley, will discuss their collaborative practice and screen a selection of short films.

Tickets and information from the Irish Film Institute.