Douyin 抖音, internationally known as TikTok, has become one of the world’s most successful apps and a leading platform for creating and sharing short videos. It was developed by Beijing- based Bytedance and is one of the few apps that has been successful outside the big firewall. To comply with Chinese law, Douyin is a completely independent app from TikTok. Although the user interface and logo look the same, the content is completely different and not accessible in the international version.

The goal of this work is to explore and analyze this vast digital ecosystem from different perspectives: screenshots capture a moment in a rapidly changing environment, determined by Douyin’s artificially intelligent recommendation algorithm. These found images are then decontextualized without change to give visitors space and opportunity to think about them and gain insights into a delimited platform and its algorithms used to show you the most engaging content.

short videos installation
chinese app and platform
social media