A R C H I V E
PREFACE
The movement of cultures and subcultures within cities, often goes unseen by the masses. But that is not to say that is not there. Grindr is designed as a gay dating/hookup app. It was the first gay app to utilise geolocation, and is now the most used app within the gay community, worldwide. Its official description is: "Over 2 million guys in 196 countries use Grindr every day. Grindr finds guys close to you for chatting and meeting anywhere in the world. Find your perfect guy right now." Grindr has shaped the way gay communities interact, socialise, romance and have sex. It has evolved from a simple geolocation app which was often portrayed as having only a singular use. To an app which has been used as a tool for violence, while simultaneously creating a support network to evade said violence. The best example of this is Egypt, where being gay is not illegal under Egyptian law, homosexual acts are seen as illegal particularly in public, and many have been convicted for breeching laws on public indecency. This is where Grindr has been used as a tool for persecution to out and capture gay men, into situations where government ‘officials’ are posing as gay men on Grindr. As well as this, the app is also being used by refugees, many Syrians who are headed for Europe. Using the app as a support and information network. Grindrs uses, may be unambiguous but are never definitive.
LOCATION SERVICES; GRINDR, AND ZERO DEGREES.
The outcome of this project will be a research based, audio visual archive experiment, which explores and unveils the network within gay communities. Which have been created and moulded by Grindrs prevalent use within said communities. What is laying beneath the endless chat? What more is there to be seen? The archive will cover different topics on how Grindr changes the queer landscapes of our cities and societies. From how Grindr can be an example of queer social Accelerationism, too how commodities within the app have created an unbalanced bioeconomic system. Within many parts of this research I want to explore Grindr as a physical space to help visualise and conceptualise, hypothesis from the obvious to the abstract. The language of address will be very personal tone, as I want the account to be very explorative for myself, as being part of the community I am researching. Meaning to investigate my relationship with my community through the use of the app. I want to talk with the people using the app in a way that most people don’t. I want to break the mundane cycle that has made the app boring for some. So to do this I’ll use forms of writing and speaking which evoke a stream of thought. Uninhibited. While also inviting other users, or researchers of Grindr to contribute to the collected knowledge surrounding and penetrating the app. For me the interest lays in the unseen landscape of London that lies dormant within the app. The cultural community, of which I am a part of, but blind to see. When moving out of the clubs and bars where do we go then? What trails do we leave behind? What lays behind the masks of the blank profiles which plagues the grid of Grindr? Why are they there in the first place?
RELOADING AN OLD FRIEND
Westminster Station. A location I surveyed and researched limitlessly. In one research method I used Grindr to survey the people passing through the station; An extensive collection of profile pictures, taken from the profiles of men on Grindr* who passed through the vicinity of Westminster Station and the surrounding 300 Meters. I used Grindr as a form of survey and research to reflect not only the way people use the space of the station, but also how we treat each other. Due to the ready availability of men to talk to on Grindr, people often bypass manners and moral, with the aim of getting what they want as quickly as possible. Not taking into account the fact that the person on the receiving end of there messages is a human being. This is particularly amplified within large cities, more so in London, due to its prominent and freely open gay community. This is hard to visualise as this happens in pockets and is localised mainly via the internet. However, I see this way of life in the ‘commute’. While commuting we have one prominent thought, which is either "Which way am I going" or "Or how am I going to get there in the quickest way possible". With the catalogue that was made for Westminster station (Click here), I used Grindr as a tool and method for research. With this project I am proposing a catalogue for Grindr, of sorts. An encyclopaedia, may be a more apt description. Where as with this project I would like the outcome to be web-based and multimedia, to echo Grindrs availability and ease of access. The outcome will showcase research, through the forms of; writing, video, art, imagery and audio.
PEOPLE NEAR ME
A short list of existing research on Grindr and its community, that I would like featured in the archive. Intimacy Mobilized: Hook-Up Practices in the Location-Based Social Network Grindr Martin Stempfhuber & Michael Liegl - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11614-016-0189-7 “In this paper we present an ethnographic exploration of the situated use of the smartphone app Grindr, a mobile hook-up device that is usually used for location-based real-time dating. It allows its users to search the geographic vicinity for men who are potentially willing to engage in intimate encounters. The study of Grindr allows us to observe the way in which technologyinduced shifts in the notions of “nearby”, “close”, or “intimate” make a difference in the very nature of contemporary intimacy.” Self-Pornographic Representations with Grindr Christian Phillips - http://www.visual-anthropology.fu-berlin.de/journal/Vol_1_1_2015/PHILLIPS.pdf “This article is an analysis of a cultural trend associated with the popularisation of new communication devices and a study about how this process influences social interactions and self-representations. It investigates how people create visual representations of themselves in the context of an online erotic socialisation. The paper draws on the argument that an anthropologically informed research could show how some traditional sex elements are changing. More specifically, it inquires how being online – either with the use of dating portals or mobile apps - affects the way people interact sexually. This brings us to the analysis of an aesthetic universe which includes self-made pornographic images: the naked selfies.” Intimate Strangers Andres Jaque “Architect Andrés Jaque, based in New York and Madrid, explores the way network culture is designing and defining new forms of behaviour and interaction. Focusing on dating apps, his audio-visual installation Intimate Strangers presents a series of tales about how our pursuit of sex and love through social media is changing the way we view the city, our bodies and our identity.”
ACCOM?
To ensure the archive has longevity, it will be open to submissions, as well as inviting particular members of the queer community to have the opportunity to host a piece on the archive. Accepting research on queer theory, in many different forms. Not just around Grindr. This is to make an everlasting queer research exchange hub, with people submitting, editing and rectifying around the world. This is something needed within the queer community, as there is many different people working on research around queer topics. However, these pieces of research are spread thinly across the internet and are not always accessible for the masses, in particular those not within academic institutions.