Basel-based playwright Boris Nikitin has placed a replica of the living container from the 2000 TV show Big Brother in the Tinguely Museum.
The acclaimed and demonised reality show from back then thus becomes a historical museum object of social media self-portrayal.
A group of "completely normal" people had themselves locked in a container and recorded around the clock by cameras that broadcast the events to a rapidly growing audience in their living rooms. The reality show, which was invented in the Netherlands in 1999, was the first to be broadcast on TV and streamed live around the clock.
In a way, Big Brother marked the birth of social media dominated by self-presentation. Facebook and Instagram only followed after 2004. The first iPhone from 2007 could be exhibited in a display case next to the ten by ten meter container. ...