Parasocial at Other Places Art Fair, 2021

After over a year of living through a global pandemic, parasocial relationships have taken on new intensity and significance. A term coined in 1956, parasocial interaction (psi) describes a psychological, primarily one-way relationship between audience and performer wherein viewers, listeners, or readers form attachments to performers in mass media. Most often a non-reciprocal relationship, social media has heightened parasocial interaction and blurred the boundaries of such relationships through exchanges with consumers. Influencers and producers of entertainment and culture may employ carefully cultivated for-profit personas to further their brands. The parasocial relationship seemingly draws upon human susceptibility to dominance, an unconscious longing for faith, leadership, or straight-up authoritarianism via cult of personality. 

While some interactions veer into the predatory, parasocial relationships can also be positive tools for exposing and eradicating biases, be spiritually uplifting, or possibly involve interaction with a spiritual dimension. 

Parasocial manifests physically the virtual, illusory, fantastic, and immaterial aspects of these relationships, featuring artists addressing the phenomenon and impacts of parasocial interaction as components of a physical outdoor installation and performance.

featuring: Danny Escalante, Maya Gurantz, Elizabeth Huey, Sarah Judd, David Otis Johnson, Semi-Tropic Spiritualists // Astri Swendsrud and Quinn Gomez-Heitzeberg

from left: Glass Cock, David Otis Johnson, installation view of Parasocial at OPaF, Maya Gurantz performance

photo credits: David Otis Johnson, Jane O’Neill, Maya Gurantz