This work is a series of live Twitter performances of characters, each of which has an account and interacts in this social network to form what Breeze describes as a “socumentary.”
“A “socumentary” is an entertainment form that merges Choose Your Own Adventure /Alternate Reality Drama/Social Game and Social Networking conventions. The result is a type of synthetic mockumentary that exists entirely within social media formats.
This work was launched on May 8, 2010 at the Arnolfini Gallery as part Performance Writing 2010, unfolded over the course of four sessions in which the characters interacted in concentrated bursts until they came to an abrupt end on May 27, 2010. This highly organized series of character conversations on the social network invited the audience to participate by interacting with the primary characters, becoming secondary characters in the unfolding narrative. Organizing everything was the cryptic Pupa Mistress, who prepared transcripts of the events, prepared summaries of the events with a meta-narrative that is more fascinating than the interactions themselves, gathered some of the interactions on a Twitter list, and engaged some of the secondary characters between sessions.
The characters’ personalities and their interactions are what make this work come alive, since they enact some Twitter and social media archetypes.
I will not go into too much detail on each character’s proclivities, but if you’re a Twitter user you’ll recognize some of the behaviors. Each one seems to have an interest they can be tracked with: photography, World of Warcraft, poetry, augmented reality, love, and plain hostility. The secondary characters range from curious observational and active engagement to trolling, all of whom Pupa Mistress measures, collates, describes, and narrates.
The narrative that unfolds in and between the episodes are imperfectly collected by the blog, Twitter list, hashtag, and account records. And as in “#OutsideUrDoor” one needs to be a kind of Internet detective to follow each trail of crumbs and assemble a narrative sure to creep the bejesus out of you. Enjoy!
Featured in ELO 2012 Media Art Show
