With "Me and Others: Artists' Perspectives on Our Online Lives," the EDF Group Foundation tackles a subject that now permeates even the most ordinary aspects of our lives: how we love, present ourselves, debate, compare ourselves, and connect with others through screens. On display in Paris until September 27, 2026, this group exhibition avoids both a naive fascination with digital technology and a hasty condemnation of social media. Instead, it chooses a more fruitful path: fostering a dialogue between contemporary art and scholarly reflection on the true impact of connected life on our relationships.
A journey through the metamorphoses of sociability
The EDF Group Foundation continues its series of exhibitions dedicated to major social issues. According to the institution, this new exhibition aims to show how the internet and social media have transformed our relationship with ourselves, with others, and with the world. The exhibition brings together some twenty French and international artists, including Sophie Calle, Philippe Parreno, Neïl Beloufa, Laurent Grasso, and Françoise Pétrovitch.
The exhibition's appeal also lies in its dual curatorial approach. The artistic component is entrusted to Aurélie Clemente-Ruiz, director of the Musée de l'Homme, while the scientific perspective is provided by Camille Roth, a computer science researcher at the CNRS and a lecturer-researcher in sociology at the EHESS. This dual perspective adds depth to the exhibition: the works do not simply illustrate contemporary anxieties surrounding digital technology, but also raise more nuanced questions about identity, algorithms, self-presentation, online communities, and our freedom of action within these spaces.
Neither technophobia nor naivety
One of the exhibition's strengths is precisely its rejection of simplistic dichotomies between the real and virtual worlds. In an interview with 20 Minutes, Camille Roth succinctly summarizes this idea: "Online life is real life, too." That's the crux of the matter. What unfolds on these platforms isn't a secondary or artificial stage; it's a genuine part of our social, emotional, and political lives.
In the same interview, the researcher also urges caution regarding certain alarmist narratives. He refers to "a kind of moral panic surrounding the real impact of tech giants on our lives," while reminding us that users are not powerless over these tools. This nuance permeates the exhibition, which neither denies the commercial logic of the platforms nor the fragmenting effects they can exacerbate, but also reminds us that digital practices are more complex than the usual caricatures suggest. With these thirty or so works, "Me and the Others" thus offers less of a condemnation than a mirror—sometimes ironic, sometimes unsettling, often remarkably accurate—of our connected lives.
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