On platforms where anyone can have a voice, and in a time when anyone can be a star, our attachments and dependencies to the content of our screens have never been more real. Scrolling, swiping, and clicking – central to the business of our everyday – enact the perfect amount of political pressure, create the perfect political narrative. All while taking the perfect selfie.

Taking an already extinct viral video as a starting point, this is perfect, perfect, perfect explores how the relentless pursuit of digital attention and monetization of content has transformed the way we consume, perceive, and engage with the world around us. Distraction, once a consequence, has become central to our algorithm-mediated realities – shaping language, identities, behaviour, and action. But how does the emotional and environmental footprint of distraction act in service of the status quo and shape the dynamics of power around us?

Content is everywhere. Content is Queen. Content is an endless stream of non-stop corporate cringe, toxic masculinity, nation-state narratives, cutified warfare propaganda, holistic health advice, sexualized bodies, and junk. Bedrooms act as studios, bathrooms are stages, and aspirations mingle with propaganda through cycles of contradictory logics of economies and emotions. Life is increasingly content – but do we consume content or does content consume us?

Confronting how stories are crafted, commerce is lived, and the never-ending trail of distraction, the artists in the exhibition peel back this familiar shiny surface, scratching at our screens to look for answers, deconstructing the hyperbolic and sensational images and narratives that are generated there, as well as the fight, flight or freeze responses that they spawn.