How Larson & Shindelman Turned Tweets Into Haunting Portraits of Political Dissent and Digital Propaganda
Welcome to this edition of [book spotlight]. Today, we uncover the layers of '#Gratitude #Благодарность,' by Nate Larson and Marni Shindelman (self-publishing). We'd love to read your comments below about these insights and ideas behind the artist's work.
What if your tweet became a political portrait?
Larson and Shindelman take real tweets and show where they came from. Their project connects the digital world with real places, exposing how social media can spread both truth and propaganda. They photographed over 60 sites linked to tweets from Russia and the US. The result is a book that shows how small online voices can reveal big political realities.
Social media leaves marks on the world, this book makes them visible.
By combining tweets, hashtags, and photography, the artists document how power moves through digital spaces. They started this work in 2009, long before people saw how dangerous social media could become. Their images ask us to think about what happens when online ideas shape the real world.
This is how art exposes digital propaganda.
The Book
Gratitude / Благодарность is a photography book by Nate Larson and Marni Shindelman that connects social media to real-world locations. The book features photographs of places linked to geolocated tweets from Russia and the United States. It focuses on hashtags like #ThanksObama and #ThanksPutinForThis to explore how social media reflects political and cultural dynamics. The project was created between 2009 and 2022 and includes over 60 sites, highlighting how online voices can reveal deeper truths about power, propaganda, and dissent. The book was designed by Ania Nałęcka-Milach and published with the support of CEC Artslink. (Website)
Overview of the project: What inspired you to focus on hashtags like #ThanksObama and #ThanksPutinForThis, and how do they encapsulate the political and cultural dynamics of their respective countries?
Nate Larson: In the first iteration of Geolocation, we chose tweets with location data based on whether they resonated with us emotionally, whether funny, sad, ironic, self-referential, and so forth. This project gave us a chance to dig in (then) Twitter in a much more focused way, thinking about the role of social media in birthing political movements, or laying the groundwork for politicians to enact their agendas. Many have argued that social media created the conditions for Donald Trump’s rise and that the tactics are those perfected by the Russian state with seeding misinformation and disinformation.
Marni Shindelman: #ThanksPutinForThis was the very first Cyrillic hashtag to break the worldwide top ten most popular hashtags. In October of 2011, Russian Party member Vladimir Burmatov posted a tweet for Putin’s 59th birthday, "Moscow is warm and sunny. Summer! #ThanksToPutinForThat” (VMoskve teplo i solntse. Leto! #spasiboputinuzaeto) - and encouraged others to follow with their own tweets using the hashtag. The invitation was accepted with more than 10,000 tweets that day alone. The resulting tweets were frequently sarcastic or critical of Putin’s political agenda. #ThanksObama was a meme often used during the Obama era. We followed #ThanksObama on the heels of his exit from office and as Trump entered office the first time.
NL: When we started the first iteration of our Geolocation project in 2009, I think that both of us were a lot more optimistic about social media. It still has the potential as a gathering place for social progress, as seen in movements like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, but the authoritarian right is now ascendant and co-opted it for darker ends. And new ownership of X / Twitter seems to use it to serve his own purposes, rather than any pretense of public good. We hope this project can shed some light on these digital spaces and think about their impacts in the physical world.
Artistic vision and approach: Your use of geolocated tweets and corresponding photographs creates a unique dialogue between the digital and physical worlds. How did this concept evolve during the project?
MS: This has been a long-term project. We started this at the dawn of Twitter in 2009. We walked Chicago with a few printouts from some maps and Twitter mashups (there were no apps yet!). We were just walking the streets, with a few thoughts in our minds, trying to think about how to connect these digital and physical spaces. After we made the first image, we both knew this was important, but we couldn’t quite elucidate it. The project grew alongside Twitter’s popularity, which happened simultaneously with the growth of iPhones. In a very short time, we have come to rely heavily on smartphones and confused the space between the digital and physical worlds. You can see this evolution in the work. There are true moments of humanity and a longing for connection that spans this time of the virtual.
Storytelling in photography: The juxtaposition of sarcastic, critical tweets with the locations they originated from adds layers of meaning. How do you see this approach contributing to the narrative of #Gratitude / #Благодарность?
NL: In working with our incredible book designer, Ania Nałęcka-Milach, she proposed an inlaid page for the tweet text, one that could serve as a sort of meta-layer of information over the photographs. We loved this approach, as we think about this all the time in the real world: we’re surrounded by a river of digital noise, washing over us in public and private spaces. In some ways, our smartphones create the conditions for a sort of augmented reality of that digital information, and our photographs are an additional visualization of that idea. And the book structure became a way to make visible this invisible layer of data. We have also always loved the writer Clive Thompson’s metaphor of social media as a sort of “Internet Extra Sensory Perception” or “Ambient Awareness” beyond our physical senses.
Challenges and perseverance: Working across political landscapes as diverse as the US and Russia must have been challenging. What obstacles did you face, and how did you navigate them to complete this project?
MS: This project would not have been possible without the support of CEC Artslink and our translator, Iaroslav Volovod. We arrived in Russia, naive, not aware of the nuances and precariousness of the situation in Russia. I arrived a few days after Nate and asked him what gifts I could possibly bring from the US for our hosts. They said “Cheese”. That conversation was the seed for this work. They told us of the sanctions and the change in Russian daily life since the first annexation of Ukraine in 2014. These twenty-somethings had grown up with Finnish yogurt and fine cheese from France. In a show of power and retaliation for sanctions, Putin had wiped the Russian grocery stores of any fine food products from the EU within a matter of days. Our friends dearly missed these products, as the domestic versions were, well, not good. And this began our education on the political situations in Russia through the popular media. We were very careful to make sure those who had helped with the project were comfortable being named publicly. Retribution for speaking against the government in Russia is a deep concern and we always try to be mindful of vulnerabilities in making our work.
NL: We photographed over sixty sites in Russia and only were able to fully comprehend the importance of the project in the following year, as Trump was elected. The book was in the early phases of production when Russia invaded Ukraine again in 2022. We sadly saw the same tactics repeat that he had used in 2016 to justify and hide this invasion to the Russian citizens.
Role of the artists: As observers of digital and political landscapes, how do you perceive your role in documenting the influence of social media on public discourse and governance?
MS: In 2012, curator Louise Clements invited us to be part of an exhibition on contemporary street photography. This was a turning point in the work for me as I began to understand how this work was a means for photography to document and comment on this change in the world. We could visually connect the text of the user with the landscape they were in when they sent it.
NL: Social media is so pervasive, fast-paced, and ephemeral, so we see the project as a means to slow it down and look closely at smaller moments. If social media is a river, we are interested in the droplets within, the small pieces that contribute to the whole. This is both a document of the individual contribution but also can be extrapolated out to the larger atmosphere. Discourse shapes politics, which shapes governance. We use the small things to suggest the larger ones.
Connection with the audience: What reactions or reflections do you hope your project evokes, especially given its exploration of propaganda, satire, and political dissent?
MS: I hope first that viewers become curious about other cultures and political situations. Twitter and the Internet are a very powerful tool that can show us unrestricted voices, not mediated by a larger media voice. Arab Spring was one of the most critical moments for this new form of media. We often think there isn’t power in a singular voice, and Twitter (now X, sigh) is a sea of digital noise. But singular voices can be extremely powerful here. By pulling out these individual tweets and treating them as archivable sentiments, we hope to encourage people to continue speaking out.
Technical and creative tips: Combining photography with geolocated digital content is a distinctive approach. What advice would you give artists looking to merge physical and digital narratives in their work?
MS: I look at “the digital” as a moving target. We are either archiving it or speaking about the critical importance of a concept contained within the technology. Geolocation does both. It acts as an archive of specific times in various locations. It also speaks deeply to the power of free media. In this book, we learn about the political situation of Russia through small, often flippant remarks. We hear of the media takeovers of liberal papers and the slow, chipping away at the freedoms of Russian citizens.
NL: I hope that more artists do engage with these spaces. Social media is pervasive yet underexamined critically. We don’t think of it as an essential infrastructure, yet in many ways, it is, creating conditions for political ideas and agendas to rise. My best advice mirrors that old adage to "eat the elephant one bite at a time" – just start and trust the process.
Art as political commentary: The project illuminates how hashtags and social media can amplify both dissent and propaganda. How do you see art contributing to the understanding and critique of such phenomena?
MS: Art can invite conversation through subversive ways. For instance, people are often drawn to these images as landscape photographs. The conversation about politics and social media comes second. And that is our goal as artists. We want conversations and thinking to occur within and outside the gallery. We want our images to lure you into the space, and then you realize the context for the project.
NL: I also find myself thinking a lot about the spaces themselves – how do the physical circumstances where the user is posting from indicate their social and political place in the world? Do certain types of spaces produce certain kinds of digital content? Perhaps an environment of disinvestment creates more disillusionment with kinds of governance. And perhaps we can suggest places to invest resources through this process.
Advice for emerging artists: For those exploring politically charged themes or innovative methods like geolocation, what lessons from #Gratitude / #Благодарность would you share to guide their creative processes?
MS: My first piece of advice is to not be afraid. Use the power you have to speak for those who may not be able to. But you also must make sure the story is clear, it is from your perspective. You do not want to sensationalise or reiterate a structure of power. Sometimes you must put away your camera and do the work of helping humans. Protecting others, in this case, our friends, came before the work. In the days following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, I became deeply worried for our friends who might be conscripted into the army. I hope at some point in the future we can give artists access to this book, without fear that possession of it would bring retribution. A friend there told me she hasn’t seen a new book in two years and was grateful for the PDF draft we had sent her.
NL: In general, I think that artist, educator, and social justice advocate Corita Kent said it best: “The only rule is work. If you work, it will lead to something. It’s the people that do all the work all the time who eventually catch on to things.” I teach at an art college and I try to bring this work ethic with the students, encouraging them to consider everything an experiment and not to let anxiety become creative paralysis. I don’t think that there is a “silver bullet” in art – we all have fear and doubt - but it’s really a matter of trusting oneself and pushing through to continue the journey.
To discover more about this intriguing body of work and how you can acquire your own copy, you can find and purchase the book here.
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