Exploring Social Media Dynamics Through Art

Digital Harvest is an art project by nother_land, conducted on Instagram from 2017 to 2019. The project serves as an experiment in the sociography of digital interaction, using automation to probe the nature of engagement on social media. In a landscape often dominated by superficiality and metrics, Digital Harvest challenges users to reconsider how technology can shape human connections—both real and artificially curated.

By transforming their Instagram account into a controlled experiment, nother_land highlights the fine line between organic and automated engagement. This project explores how even automated systems can generate authentic, meaningful interactions when guided by a deeper intention.

Product

The project operated through an Instagram art profile, where nother_land used automation to perform likes, comments, and follows. However, unlike typical bots that prioritize engagement numbers alone, this automation was designed to seek out genuine profiles and spread positive appreciation. This method gave rise to the concept of "digital farming," where intentional acts of automated interaction aimed to cultivate meaningful connections.

• Automation of Interaction: A script was developed to perform basic social actions—likes, comments, and follows—at specific intervals, testing how these automated interactions impacted real human engagement over time.
• Organic Engagement Farming: The project focused on a strategy to attract and nurture genuine users, using automation to initiate contact but leaving space for organic growth and interaction to flourish.

The result was a hybrid between automated interaction and human curation, creating a system that blurred the line between authentic human engagement and the artificial nature of automation.

Process

The technical process behind Digital Harvest involved a carefully designed automation script running over the course of two years. This script was programmed to interact with other Instagram accounts by:

Automating Likes, Comments, and Follows: Rather than randomly interacting with all profiles, the automation targeted users likely to respond positively, creating the illusion of curated human engagement.

Bypassing Detection: We had to continuously adjust the script to avoid detection by Instagram’s anti-bot algorithms. This became increasingly challenging, highlighting the friction between personal interaction and the platform’s algorithmic policing. The software package used, was a fork of InstaPy, along with custom and curated extensions.

Measuring Success Through Engagement: Metrics such as follower count, likes, and comments were recorded and analyzed, but the project’s focus remained on whether genuine interaction could be maintained in an automated environment. Over two years, the account grew to over 4000 followers, with individual posts receiving up to 700 likes. One notable observation was that positive and teasing comments—crafted to spark conversation—were far better received than mere follows or likes. These comments triggered significantly more interaction, demonstrating that even within an automated system, personalized engagement creates more authentic and meaningful responses.

However, despite these successful moments, the experiment also underscored the difficulty of maintaining authenticity in a landscape dominated by algorithmic filtering and anti-automation measures.

Policy

Digital Harvest interrogates the role of automation in the context of human connection and authenticity on digital platforms. In a world where social media algorithms constantly evolve to detect and eliminate automated behavior, this project raises questions about what constitutes genuine engagement in an increasingly automated society.

The use of automated tools for creating real social value, rather than superficial metrics, contrasts with the profit-driven nature of most social media algorithms, which often prioritize viral content over meaningful interaction. Digital Harvest prompts viewers to question whether automation, when designed with intention and positive interaction in mind, can still hold space for authentic digital relationships.

Legacy

By merging automation with artistic expression, Digital Harvest offers a new lens through which to view the digital ecosystems we inhabit. The project invites reflection on one’s own digital footprint and challenges preconceived notions about social media as purely superficial. It explores whether human-like interaction, when driven by automation, can still generate real, positive engagement in a world dominated by digital immediacy.

In the end, Digital Harvest leaves open a critical conversation: can automation become a tool for fostering genuine human connection, or is it bound to be restricted by platform algorithms focused on curating specific types of engagement? While the project did not achieve viral success, its legacy lies in prompting audiences to reconsider how they engage with others in digital spaces.

An automation script can be found at https://gist.github.com/scopalaffairs/c4b240ee19f5f1f7de122f32a43842f2.

Artist: nother_land
Project Duration: 2017-2019
Platform: Instagram