The Alchemy of Aesthetics and the Social

This chapter explores the alchemic environment of aesthetics and sociality on Instagram in the context of art, artists and its audiences. The interrelationship between aesthetics and sociality manifests in ways that have created an environment where copying, mimicking and influencing are possible on Instagram. Through Instagram, artists, their institutions and audiences engage with aesthetics and sociality to explore art behind the scenes of the walls of the White Cube, expanding knowledge and perhaps exploding some long-held myths. The chapter considers how Instagram, having challenged many of the institutional practices of the display, valuation and experience of viewing art, has now itself cohered into a mega institutional and infrastructural form, at a scale and reach well beyond those institutions to which it once posed a challenge. Social artists such as Danielle Coke, Pan Cooke, Jono Smart and Lisa Congdon are just four of many artists using their artwork on Instagram as an animating force for social change.