Welcome To The Metaverse (WttM) explores the problematics of the Metaverse in one of the most realized versions of the Metaverse available: Meta’s Instagram face filters. These filters will be recognizable to the billions of users of Instagram, Tiktok, or Snapchat: a user’s visage is augmented by computer graphics that track the position of their facial features . WttM is novel in that the face filter changes to match spoken narration. It operates as a hybrid between linear media, such as film or radio, and interactive and immersive media. By using affordances and tropes that feel familiar to social media users, I’m attempting with this documentary experience to introduce messages and conversations that they might not receive otherwise. In Umberto Eco’s terms, I’m waging Semiotic Guerrilla Warfare: subverting the communication “chain” by leaving the “channel” intact (Instagram) and inserting into the “message” (the documentary) a different “code”. This code is ambivalence - an unease about social media, tech platforms and surveillance.
IMPOSTER MEDIA
BRETT GAYLOR FILMMAKER, PRODUCER, WRITER.