JumpCut Theatre has taken note from several theatre companies, individuals and visual artists who share the same topicality of our performance, the use of social media, identity and the obsession with idealised beauty.
Louise Orwin
One artist that was particularly influential to us as a company is Louise Orwin’s piece Pretty Ugly. The piece “explores a current generation’s fascination with YouTube [and] social media” (Orwin, 2015) and interrogates the recent trend that teenage girls have of asking the public to rate their appearance. I particularly like the fact that this piece “seeks to bring awareness to the way we are beginning to use online platforms; becoming relentless self-editors […] of our online and offline identities” (Orwin, 2015). We also hope to raise awareness regarding the effects that social media has on us. We want to highlight the way we are using social media and how it is contributing to the obsession with unattainable beauty.
In an interview Orwin states, “I think social media today [has] open[ed] up a new world where girls can really grow in their obsession […] you can find posts for example where they help each other with tips on how to best insert your fingers in the throat to puke” (Orwin, 2013).
We want to explore and highlight current fascinations and obsessive trends with beauty and body image.
Such as:
YouTube tutorials on contouring the face.
The ‘selfie’ trend.
Contorting the body to appear thinner in images.
The obsession with body shape.
In Pretty Ugly, Orwin uses a handheld live-streaming camera, which projects close-ups of her face and objects onto a screen at the back of the stage. This idea of live streaming is something that we wish to pursue and develop further within the set of our piece.
Wies Fest
Another piece that highly influenced our vision of the show is A Whole Lot of Nothing by performance artist Wies Fest. The artist stands on a bare stage in ordinary fluorescent light and presents a bare face. The performance synopsis explains,
“A girl applies her make-up to look pretty, every day, and then she goes and tries to get as much attention as she can. She’s struggling, with real feelings and with her first world problems. And sometimes she forgets the difference between the two. The answer is this: nothing” (Flare Festival, 2015).
This piece highly influenced the direction of the scene ‘sculpting the face’ in which we explore the mania surrounding contouring YouTube tutorials – the art of highlighting and lowlighting sectors of the face to achieve perfection.
Works Cited:
Flare Festival, (2014), A Whole Lot of Nothing- Wies Fest. [online] Available from: http://www.flarefestival.com/project/a-whole-lot-of-nothing-wies-fest/ [Accessed 10 March 2015].
Louise Orwin (2014) Pretty Ugly Trailer. [online video] Available from https://vimeo.com/80746286 [Accessed 3 March 2015].
Orwin, L. (2015) [online] Available from: http://louiseorwin.com/site/project/id/15 [Accessed 3 March 2015].
Orwin, L. (2013) My Interview with Louise Orwin. [online] Available from: http://mediasavvygirls.com/my-interview-with-louise-orwin-pretty-ugly-project/#sthash.Kh1auDkN.q2mFprVx.dpbs [Accessed 6th March 2015].
Orwin, L. Pretty Ugly. (2015) [online] Available from: https://prettyorugly.wordpress.com/ [Accessed 4th March 2015].
Youtube (2015) Contouring Image. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L414AMdFIAg [Accessed 4th March 2015].
Weis Fest (2013) A Whole Lot of Nothing. [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joa-95Ou7KI [Accessed 9 March 2015].