Fig 2. Screen-grab of Google image results page for ‘Selfie’ search (October 2014)
The consequence of neglecting to consider non-human elements is that the discourse of participation in art has been blind to the incorporation of user participation in another social sphere – that of social media (Fig 2).(1) It is a space of abundant creative production where participation takes place non-stop and where new commons are relentlessly being created and often immediately enclosed. This constant participation is a prevailing regime that governs social media where sharing and peer production is immediately followed by rent and division.(2) Caffentzis (2010) recognises these as conflicting realities where co-operative models are appropriated by capitalism into a neoliberal model and the two exist under the same concept of commons. Recognising this can be helpful in identifying that discourses of participation and participatory art today would be more accurately described as post-participatory. Post- participation assumes participation as a condition present everywhere and enacted by humans and non-humans participating together and being already part of something regardless if it is a desired outcome. Paraphrasing the words of Gene McHugh (2011) about Internet and post-Internet, participation is not a way to escape to another world, but a way in which we are already in the world we wanted to escape from.(3) As implied, post-participation refers to and sits alongside other post-concepts such as post-internet, post-digital and post-human which point to the everyday quality of technology and its semi-autonomy from traditional human/social relations. This proliferation of the ‘post-anything’, with which Geoff Cox (2014) describes the current tendency in critical thinking to refer to processes of displacement, is representative of the increased participation of technologies in not only managing and organising, but also defining social relations.(4)