SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH

I’m researching social media and how applications like TikTok and Instagram can be used for creating art and the interaction of the public with this online digital form of art.

The Filter. The Digital Double. To complete this research, I’ve created a profile in TIKTOK @azarshka . 

Social Media is also part of my research for my performance GRIEF for the next term. With the pandemic and the lack of physical freedom for adults and children, many turned to social media platforms for interacting with their friends and others. 

I’m interested in researching the use of this social media platform by the general public and particularly the creation of the digital double, in this case not understood as the uncanny but more as the idea of the avatar. The idea of the avatar I’m researching is developed in the film Ready Player One (2018), directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the novel of the same name written by Ernest Cline. This particular film struck me strongly. I had the pleasure to be part of the project and I use my own persona as an example of how an idea I first saw as very imaginative and unreal became real with the pandemic.

On top of that I’m researching how some people have extended their reality to the world on social media platforms and how the usage of these platforms compromises the privacy of adults and children and what has changed particularly with children massively using these platforms since the pandemic.

I’m also creating some digital content for props for the play GRIEF written by David Kantonunas. That content will be marketed with the title ‘Grief: The play’.

Sometimes I’ll combine some of the content I’ll create for the play GRIEF with some of my research resulting in videos with the title ‘Grief: The play’ where I research something, like the use of a filter and the idea of the digital double.

In this profile I create the following type of content:

1. Applying concepts of the theatre, like the use of masks, as mentioned in the book ‘Impro: Improvisation and the theatre' (2007) by Keith Johnston, into these applications.

2. Explaining different types of exercises and techniques actors use in their training (like the creation of characters, for example the Buffoon, as we saw in Jack’s class, or the different types of walks of the characters, how to deliver lines for stage acting).

3. Creating videos following the trends of the application and understanding those from the perspective of the creation of art, studying the idea of Reflection and self-representation (based on the research of Elena Cologni) and exploring the idea of digital double and the double as a reflection (based in the work done by Antonin Artaud, La Fura Dels Baus, Jacques Derrida and Dan Graham).

4. Digital content for props for the play GRIEF where I explore concepts related to the play. On some occasions I use this content to research some topics, like masks, the idea of an avatar developed in the film Ready Player One (2018).

With this content I’ll observe:

1. Interaction of other uses: Visualisations, likes, creation of discussions.
2. The possibilities for the creation of art using this platform.
3. The difference in between the response of the audience on Tiktok from the response on the audience in Instagram.
4. Trends and their social impact.
5. The line that separates something considered art and performance and from what it is not.
6. The idea of Intermedia.

After creating that content on Tiktok, I share it to Instagram, a different social media application, and I observe how the perception of the same content changes by having a different audience and being shared in an application that was originally based on photography and not moving images.

I'm also exploring the idea of Intermedia firstly coined by Dick Higgins, explained in the book 'Intermedia: Forty years on and beyond' (2006) written by Sage Elwell, to describe works of art that 'seemed to fall in between media'. Social Media Platforms allow you to create a form of art that is only lived online. Depending on where that piece of art is published (uploaded), the public can have a direct interaction with it like commenting or making a video reaction to it (just to mention a few options), which brings you to the second stage of creating art within social media platform, as the line with the so-called immersive theatre becomes very thin. An example of immersive theatre is the performances created by the British Company Punchdrunk. Punchdrunk brought the immersive theatre to The UK. In their performances the audience is free to come and go as they please and their performances take part in multiple environments. In Tiktok there is an option where you can interact/react to the content/creation of another person, and that interaction can be multiple. This feature in Tiktok allows the audience to interact with ‘art’ that is already created and to freely create another piece of art .For instance I’ve seen multiple videos of men not looking at the phone camera with a voice-over in the background and then suddenly turning their heads and looking at the camera -so it gives the impression they are looking at the audience-. Those videos are mostly about men talking about finding a cougar. Some people have interacted with these videos and the way they have interacted with the videos has completely changed the initial intention of the creation of those videos, becoming a comedy piece of art instead. For instance, some people have been interacting with these videos pretending to be looking at these men without nobody observing them and these men not acknowledging them and then suddenly when the men turn their heads to the camera, they behave as if they got caught in situ).

TIKTOK VIDEOS

In my Tiktok videos I question in the perception of the digital as reality and the concept of art/ theatre/performance. According to Grotowski and his idea of The Poor Theatre in his book Towards a poor theatre (1975), we only need one actor and a member of the audience to have theatre. I question the creation of art online with this platform: At the moment of the creation, I don’t have an audience and uploading the video to the platform doesn’t guarantee the video will have some audience, can it be then considered theatre? When is it considered theatre? Do we only consider it theatre when it is seen? Or when I create the video? These questions bring me to the point of questioning the difference in space and time between when the performance/scene/theatre is created and when is seen by the audience. This is a concept researched by the Italian artist Elena Cologni, Blood, Sweat and Theory (2010). Elena Cologni investigates the perception of time and how the live recording, pre-recording and transmission can all be perceived as overlapping layers of representation of time and unfold in duration. In her project Experimental, Elena Gologni looks at the continuous performance artist-audience exchange in the present.

With my videos in Tiktok, the present is determined by the time the audience watches the video. Each video in Tiktok can be reused and transformed into a new video creating a new scene/performance/interaction either by the artist, me, or by the public. If I, the artist continue reusing a video I have uploaded to Tiktok and I create a new piece of art/scene/performance, that particular video will become something organic without an end until I decide not to reuse it anymore and so the concept of time of that video will be manipulated by me, the artist. Where is the end of my performance/video? Is it when I first upload it and every video where that video is reused is a continuity of it or is it considered something new? How do I determine the time of my performance? When it's created it or when the audience sees it?

On the other hand, if it’s the audience that modifies the video and creates another video (like a video with reactions), then in that case we’ll be entering the territory of immersive theatre where the audience has the freedom to do as they please in the performance. And if more than one user modifies/reuses the video, we could go into the concept of Immersive Theatre brought to The UK by the British Company Punchdrunk: The different spaces of the performance would be the different profiles of the members of the audience that have used that video to create another video/art/scene/performance. Then the audience would stop being the audience for becoming the actor. Where is the limit between audience and actor? Are we all actors in social media? If my video is reused by others and is posted on their profile, does it stop being my video? Where is the limit of ownership of a creative product in social media?

And following the idea of the avatar mentioned in Postdramatic Theatre and Postdramatic Performance (2015), how does the audience respond when they understand I am doing research in Tiktok? What is the sense of ownership and belonging the audience has with the platform?

1. Masks 

In this video, I explore the concept of the use of masks in Theatre as portrayed in the book Impro: Improvisation and the theatre (2007) written by Keith Johnstone.

As Keith Johnstone mentions in this book, masks have their own personality and characteristics and the actor who wears that mask embodies the personality and characteristics of the mask. He mentioned some actors have to rehearse for quite some time to get to that point where they work with the characteristics of the mask.

In this video, I question the creation of the mask. In this case, the mask is a filter that the social media application offers. The mask is only real in the digital world, as an actor, I don’t physically have the mask on. I only seem to have the mask on if I am looking at the screen and when I do, even if the mask is only real in the digital world, I, the actor, behave accordingly to the mask. I question where the line is between theatre and digital. Is digital becoming the real thing? I’m accepting this mask as real even if it only exists in the digital world? Is the audience accepting the mask? Am I becoming a mask in the digital world?

2. The Walk 

In this video, I explain a great exercise to develop characters as seen in class with Ed and Jack. The walk of a character illustrates what the character says and how they communicate with others.

Depending on what part of the body leads the walk, we can determine different types of characters:

1. If the walk is led by the head, we will be portraying a dreamer.
2. If the walk is led by the chest, we will be portraying somebody with power and a high position.
3. If the walk is led by the hips, we will be portraying somebody dangerous and sneaky.
4. If the walk is led by the core, we will be portraying somebody centred, one of the crowd.

3. The Buffoon 

The buffoon was originally a professional jester. The origin of the buffoon comes to Mediaeval Europe when people used to be exiled for being different. Once a year they were invited back inside the city for the annual hock-tide celebration and beautiful people could look down at them.

It was Jacques Lecoq in the early 1960s who used the word ‘buffoon’ in a theatrical context. He created different and dynamic classroom exercises that explored different elements of burlesque, commedia dell’arte, farce, gallows humour, parody and satire. ‘Theatre of Movement and Gesture’ (2006).

In this video I explain the classroom exercise of how to create a buffoon as explained by Jack.

4. Trend applying the concept of The Poor Theatre of Grotowski 

Polish actor and theatre director Jerzy Grotowski in his book Towards the poor theatre (1975), questions what is the minimum needed to have theatre and then concludes that we can eliminate everything except one actor and one person who stays in the audience. With the creation of my Tiktok videos, I wonder when those videos will become theatre. When do I record them? Or when somebody sees them online? Are my videos always considered performances? Or are they only considered a performance when somebody sees them online? If my performance is digital, is it still considered theatre?

5. The Filter. The Digital Double

This video was created as digital content for the play GRIEF written by David Kantounas. After discussing with Ed about the role of social media in this play I understood the frivolity with which the younger characters of the play might use social media platforms like Tiktok.

In this video, I follow a trend in Tiktok which consists of using a filter that makes you look much more beautiful than in real life. Again the concept of the mask as seen previously appears here. The concept of the mask is a recurring concept in social media. The mask only is ‘real’ in the digital world but it still affects us in how we behave.

Keith Johnstone in his book Impro: Improvisation and the theatre (2007) and John Wright in his book Why Is That So Funny?: A Practical Exploration of Physical Comedy (2015) develop a bit further the idea of the traditional use of masks in theatre and how training with masks is part of the training of an actor and how the mask has its own personality and the actor when wearing the mask embodies the spirit of the mask.

In the experimental French film The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) by Artaud, the obsession of the priest takes the form of a beautiful woman (played by Génica Athanasiou) who appears to him like a mirage. According to Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, she is an "image of the woman, as phantom, as spectre, as shadow of desire” (Jamieson, L. (2007) 'The Lost Prophet of Cinema: The Film Theory of Antonin Artaud'. Available at: https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2007/feature-articles/film-theory-antonin-artaud/ (Accessed: 4 April 2022)).

In this video I play with the idea of beauty and how we present ourselves to the world (in social media). We present ourselves as an object of desire and beauty. How would we like to be seen by others? What is the idea we have about ourselves?

I briefly touched on the concept of the avatar of the Digital Double mentioned in the book The Digital Double (2004) by Dixon, a concept this time derived by the Hindu Scriptures and understanding the avatar as the bodily incarnation of the deities, considering the avatar as the maximum representation of beauty we have about ourselves. With the idea of perfect beauty portrayed by ourselves in social media I cannot not talk about Kim Kardashian and her book Selfish (2015), a compilation of her various selfies she took and posted in social media, a predecessor of the avatar in video social media platforms like Tiktok. With the creation of selfies, we started to create our digital double, our digital avatar which represents how we see ourselves and how we want others to see us.

6. Delivering lines for stage 

In this video I explain an exercise for projecting the voice on stage that we have done at one of Ed’s classes.

To help with the projection of the voice, the actor might imagine that each time they speak, they are throwing a ball and further the actor projects the voice, further away the ball reaches in the space. The visualisation of the ball helps the actor projecting their voice.

A different exercise that I also explain in this video regarding voice projection is the clapping at the final word of the sentence. The clapping motion helps with bringing up the last word of the line and therefore projecting the voice as opposed to bringing down the last word of the sentence and so not projecting enough the voice. Doing so, not projecting the voice, not directing the voice to our partner in the scene, makes our partner in scene not being affected by what the actor says and so the tension in the play deflates.

Instead of clapping at the end of the last word, the actor can also stomp the food at the end of the sentence to help with the projection of the voice and affect the other actor in the scene.

7. Distortion and Artaud 

Antonin Artaud developed the idea of the digital double in his book ‘The theatre and its double’ (1938). The idea of the digital double of Artaud is the idea of the uncanny, the spiritual double. Artaud, in his film The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) immerses the viewer into a world where all images are potentially unstable and dangerous. All images have the capacity to stretch, vanish or mutate. For example, the image of the woman (as object of the priest’s desire) is presented ethereally throughout. She appears and disappears like an apparition, until the climax of the chase sequence where her body is seen to distort, stretch and deform.

Images of corporeality are presented as untrustworthy in the film, liable to alter in response to intense emotional states. This sentiment appealed to the Surrealists, with their interest in the recreation of dream imagery and sublime states of mind in order to access the subconscious self. (Jamieson, L. (2007) 'The Lost Prophet of Cinema: The Film Theory of Antonin Artaud'. Available at: https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2007/feature-articles/film-theory-antonin-artaud/ (Accessed: 4 April 2022)).

With this video and the filter used in this video, I explore the idea of digital double as the uncanny playing with the distortion of the face as a way to represent the spiritual double of the actor based in the film The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) of Artaud where distortion is used to represent the digital double.

8. Video reaction. Immersive Theatre 

In this video I explore the concept of Immersive theatre as developed in Postdramatic Theatre and Postdramatic Performance (2015) and how the roles in between audience and actor easily interchange one with another. Immersive Theatre is claimed to have reversed the traditional power relationship between the performer and the audience. This type of theatre was brought to the Anglo-Saxon Theatre by the British Company Punchdrunk (2000), who created a new type of theatre where the public is free to come and go as they please in between the multiple environments created by the performers. I extrapolate the idea of multiple environments to the world of social media and the digitall world where each environment is defined by the own TikTok profile of each person either performing or watching this video (audience) and how that space can multiply to the infinitive creating and endless environment and performance/piece of art. This particular type of performance in this video, within the immersive theatre, could be classified as a texted mimetic performance because the each actor follows a script (voice over in this case) and the audience is free to watch it or pass over (scroll over the video without finishing to see the full content of the video).

I’m also researching the concept of Context collapse as the flattening of multiple audiences in a single context as presented in ‘‘Time Collapse in Social Media: Extending the Context Collapse’ (2018). The concept theoretically appears with Goffman in his book ‘The presentation of self in everyday life’ (1990). Goffman discussed how individuals tailor performances according to various social settings. Context collapse typically refers to how social media flatten multiple audiences into a single context. This context collapse may complicate audience segregation and the tailoring of self-performances in social media.

INSTAGRAM VIDEOS

I share my TIKTOK videos in my Instagram acting profile. One of the differences between my profile in TIKTOK and my profile in Instagram is the type of followers I have. In my Instagram profile most of my followers are either actors, photographers or somebody related to the art of performance (film, theatre or photography). Posting my Titkok videos in my Instagram profile I’m observing the difference in interaction of my followers with my content. In my posts on Instagram I explain why I’m creating that content and what my research while in Tiktok I tend to keep that information to the minimum.

Posting in both social media platforms allows me to observe the interaction of the audience with my content and how the same content is perceived in a different way, simply choosing by uploading it to different social media platforms.

I won’t explain every Instagram video in this post as the research is the same as in TIktok. Please refer to each explanation of the video in Tiktok for more detail of each video.

1. The Mask 

2. The Walk 

3. The Buffoon  

4. Trend applying The Poor Theatre of Grotowski 

5. The Filter. The Digital Double 

6. Delivering lines for stage 

7. Distortion and Artaud 

8. Video reaction. Immersive Theatre 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aqueous Humour Theatre Company (2012) ‘Bouffons’. Available at: https://www.aqueoushumour.com/about/bouffons/ (Accessed 5 April 2022)

Brandtzaeg, P. B. and Lüders, M. (2018) ‘Time Collapse in Social Media: Extending the Context Collapse’, Social Media + Society. doi: 10.1177/2056305118763349 (Accessed 5 April 2022)

Brecht, B. (1964) ''Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic'. New York. Hill & Wang.

Carlson, M. (2015). 'Postdramatic Theatre and Postdramatic Performance', Brazilian Journal on Presence Studies, pp577-595. Available at: h t t p : / / w w w. s e e r . u f r g s . b r / p r e s e n c a (Accessed 31 March 2022).

Castello di Rivoli. (2022). ‘Maurizio Cattelan’. Available at: https://www.castellodirivoli.org/en/artista/maurizio-cattelan/ (Accessed 4 April 2022)

Dixon, S. (2004) 'The Digital Double'. Routledge

Encyclopedia Britannica (1995) 'Epic Theatre of Brecht'. Available at https://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~jamesf/goodwoman/brecht_epic_theater.html (Accessed: 4 April 2022).

Freeman, J. (2010). Blood, Sweat & Theory. London. Libri Publishing

Freud, S. (2003) The Uncanny. London. Penguin Classics

Goffman, E. (1990). The presentation of self in everyday life. London, England: The Penguin Press (Original work published 1959).

Gray, R. "Freud and the Literary Imagination".Lecture Notes: Freud, "The Uncanny" (1919) Available at: https://courses.washington.edu/freudlit/Uncanny.Notes.html (Accessed: 4 April 2022)

Grotowski J. (1975) Towards the poor theatre. London. Methuen Drama

Jamieson, L. (2007) 'The Lost Prophet of Cinema: The Film Theory of Antonin Artaud'. Available at: https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2007/feature-articles/film-theory-antonin-artaud/ (Accessed: 4 April 2022).

Johnstone, K. (2007) Impro: Improvisation and the theatre. London. Methuen Drama

Kattenbelt, C. (2008) 'Intermediality in Theatre and Performance: Definitions, Perceptions and Medial Relationships', Culture, language and representation, Cultural Studies Journal of Universitat Jaume I , 6 (1697-7750), pp19-29

Kardashian, K (2015) Selfish. New York.Universe

Lecoq. J (2006). Theatre of Movement and Gesture. London. Routledge

Ploeger, D. 'Digital Parts / Modular Doubles: fragmenting the ‘digital double’'

Sage Elwell, J. (2006) 'Intermedia: Forty years on and beyond', Afterimage, 33 (5), pp 25-29

Stanislavski, C. (2013). An Actor prepares. London. ‎ Bloomsbury Academic; Reprint edition

Wright, J (2006) Why Is That So Funny?: A Practical Exploration of Physical Comedy. London. Nick Hern Books

*This is a project for my MA Acting for Stage and Screen at UEL, London (2022)