The case of @Yvansalomone isn’t exceptional but is worth being considered. One of the most popular way to customize an Instagram account has been to create something out of the square format. M. Salomone creates an image on his feed by assembling different Instagram posts. This makes the feed really visual and well-arranged. Some also decide to arrange their feed according to specific themes or colors, while some others are benefiting from the geometrical form of the feed. For instance, artistes are using the fact that there are three pictures for each line on an Instagram feed. This enables them to have a line of their feed focused on a particular thematic, or to use each time a square out of the three for a very specific purpose. Thus, some will have videos on all their squares situated on the right of their phones for instance. Examples of this practice are to be seen on those accounts as well: @2.0_photographie_, @lordesperanza or @david_lachapelle)
In 2014, Rihanna saw her account being suspended. She posted the cover of the magazine Lui on which she was starring. Her nipples were to be seen on the cover, which led Instagram to censor the account for a while, even though how popular she is. It shows how uncompromising the censorship on women’s nipples is on Instagram. Rihanna is an artist and the picture taken for the cover was artistic as well, but Instagram took it as nudity (probably because this censorship has been done by artificial intelligence)
Art on Instagram can also be used against artists themselves. Celebrity photographers recently encountered legal issues on the platform. Indeed, celebrities are often posting pictures taken at events. Those are almost all taken by photographers, which they usually don’t mention on their posts and sometimes even don’t ask them their permission. However, a photograph made by a professional has a price and those celebrities are posting these pictures without paying it. Thus, the work of those artists isn’t recognized, they could have make profit from the pictures and their intellectual property is denied, as if it was the celebrity’s property. To counter this trend, photographers find a way to make money out of this offense: they sue celebrities and manages to win thousands of dollars. Take the example of Khloe Kardashian in 2017, not only she hadn’t paid for the photograph she posted on Instagram, but she also changed it by a filter: she modified something that didn’t belong to her. As a result, the photograph was compensated $175,000 that Ms. Kardashian had to pay.
Morgane Ortin behind this Instagram account answered some of our questions, but knowing whether her account is an artistic one or not seemed to difficult to include us on our inquiry. However, her concept is still quite interesting. She customizes Instagram by using the visual codes of Iphone messages. Those messages are romantic discussions sent by her followers, which of course raises questions about whether she owes the content she posts or if their followers do. With this account she has a double constraint: she must respect the format imposed by Instagram and the one of iOS. The art isn’t expressed by her feed nor by what she posts, but rather by what those messages are saying. Thus, instead of using Instagram for visual art, she seemed to have created a new form of art - the art of romance messaging - which directly derives from this quite new “social media era”. Playing with social media, she managed to take ownership of the platform.
This account is a drawing account of a cosmic universe using the concept of comic strips. Indeed, once in a while, a part of a story is posted on this account. This is what makes this account particular in terms of customization: the artist is building a story from his Instagram feed. He used the squares as a way to make dialogues between the different protagonists of his story.
This account is an artistic erotic account. It explicitly represents sexual intercourses, and cleary appears as a pornographic Instagram account. Even though pornography is forbidden on the platform, accounts like this one aren’t censored because they’re considered to be art as the sexual content is shown through drawing or painting. However, it seems way more provocative than a woman’s nipples, which are suffering from censorship on the platform. In fact, recently those artistic accounts have been facing trouble customizing their accounts as a debate finally arrose: should those visuals be freely seen by everyone?(meaning sexual criminals or children for instance). This led Instagram to finally take action on this form of art, as the platform sent a warning to many of these accounts, threatening to delete them all (this seems utopic). As a result, artists as @kalli.phygia created Patreon accounts (another platform) on which they are now used to post their most explicit contents. Since the contents are paying which means artists can also make money out of this new platform. Will artists use Patreon to replace Instagram someday?
Morgane Ortin behind this Instagram account answered some of our questions, but knowing whether her account is an artistic one or not seemed to difficult to include us on our inquiry. However, her concept is still quite interesting. She customizes Instagram by using the visual codes of Iphone messages. Those messages are romantic discussions sent by her followers, which of course raises questions about whether she owes the content she posts or if their followers do. With this account she has a double constraint: she must respect the format imposed by Instagram and the one of iOS. The art isn’t expressed by her feed nor by what she posts, but rather by what those messages are saying. Thus, instead of using Instagram for visual art, she seemed to have created a new form of art - the art of romance messaging - which directly derives from this quite new “social media era”. Playing with social media, she managed to take ownership of the platform.
He believes that artists that are starting on Instagram need to go back to traditional forms of art sooner or later. First, Instagram might easily become boring because of its constrained physical framework. Moreover, he declares : “The good thing with those devices is that we already know they are surviving through time, it’s not the case for Instagram which is very recent. We don’t know what it’ll become in the following years. And this goes without saying that only broadcasting art through Instagram is also risky since an account could be suppressed. There has been already loads of mutations in social media, Tumblr was used by artists as first and now millions of users left their accounts as if they were ghosts. It could be the same with Instagram.” He himself does many exhibitions and publishes books. According to him, there is also an issue when it comes to mobilization. People liking one picture will not necessarily go an see exhibitions, for instance. Artists must not be fooled by Instagram and its pretended community, but must rather build a community in the real world, which would be ready to actually support their work. However, David used other social media before but he has only used Instagram since he downloaded it. It appears to him as simpler and quicker than other platforms: “it’s the best platform for photographs” he said.