Mark Farid

Born in Leicester, Mark Farid is an artist and Lecturer in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. He specialises in the intersection of the virtual and physical world, and the effect of new technologies on the individual and their sense of self. Farid’s work embodies hacker ethics, such as privacy policies, use of surveillance technologies, data privacy and protection, and the critique of social, legal, and political models.

Farid graduated from Kingston University, London, with a First Class (Hons) degree in Fine Art in 2014, and has since given talks and participated in group and solo exhibitions in England, France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Finland, Slovenia, UAE, and Japan. Farid gave a TEDx talk in 2017 about his first two project, Data Shadow (2015), and Poisonous Antidote (2016).

Through Poisonous Antidote, Farid questions, as we become increasingly dependent on technology and social media, is the human psyche starting to fundamentally change?

Connectivity advances safety and education, medical research and treatment. Social media enables 24-hour connectivity with friends, family and foes alike. Algorithmically tailored news feeds unite individuals and groups through common interests, humour and cultural phenomena.

Through carefully curated public portals into private lives, individuals willingly relinquish online privacy for social stardom, eliminating moments that fail to meet accepted social norms. Acute awareness of this digital documentation promotes subconscious self-validation dependent on the categoric ‘reactions’ of one’s peers. With self-fulfilment deriving from the number of ‘likes’ a projected image amasses, social conduct is increasingly entrenched with this online editorial.