Review of artwork - ANN HIRST - PLAYGROUND
While looking through online exhibitions about artists that use text and the idea of online personas, harassment and using digitality as a medium itself. I came across Ann Hirst whose work addresses women's sexual self-expression and identity online and in popular culture.
‘I’m interested in looking at the ways women can be sexual in our culture, but at what cost this comes’ says Ann Hirsch, ‘this piece is an example of that’. Hirsch is talking about her new installation which reimagines her 2013 play Playground, currently being shown at the group show Emotional Supply Chains at the Zabludowicz Collection in London. The play uses fragments of Hirsch’s own life to explore the simultaneously positive and negative consequences of young girls living their lives online from a young age.1 The 12-year-old Anni character is able to explore sexuality online in ways she can’t offline. But, it’s at the cost of her being emotionally manipulated. The fact that the work is called "Playground" suggests the innocence of the character's behalf, as well as a form of entertainment, either for "Anni" or the man. Playgrounds are meant to be age-appropriate and safe for children, yet here, the playground - the space where kids come together to play and interact - is digital and in some cases dangerous. This is something that a lot of people can relate to, they don't want to be seen as a prude or a chicken, so sometimes put themselves in danger to be liked and listened to. I've found this is not only an issue children face but in a fast-paced world of 15 seconds of fame and social media "influencers" people feel the need to be seen, even at the cost of their own self-esteem and mental health. I personally don't live for "likes" and "comments" although still interact with social platforms, as I see them as a byproduct of sharing my interests. Having said that, receiving the type of messages I do, while perhaps part in part of the platform is not something I enjoy.
She also suggests that “Whenever you put your body online, in some way you are in conversation with porn. ” This context is something that I am interested in through my research of literature and personal experiences. Even without trying, it seems my body is an object so why not play with it? All that matters to me is that I don’t consent to be used as a toy, so once I make that clear, it is up to the sender to dig themselves into a deeper hole. Her research has included becoming a YouTube camwhore, amassing over two million views on her videos, as well as making appearances on some popular reality television shows.
When I get these messages, I usually know what's about to happen when the messages are “hi, where are you from” and “how old are you”, so I set rules for myself like a game. For example, I do not instigate, I do not encourage and if things go too far I do block them. My images are also PG13 at worst, so it is not as if I invite these types of context although I don't think context would matter in the case of these messages as the senders are just thinking with their heads (and not the one on their shoulders). I feel that in future work it would be important to include the whole conversation, as there are always two sides to a coin. Below are some of the screenshots of full messages for context. Whether I can show these as works in their own right or mix them into an installation of other information combined together, after researching Hirsch, I became more interested in how text (as in literal messages rather than just words) can be used in artworks to inform the narratives.
I want to add here, that I am NOT promoting going after these people, these screenshots are only a few of the collection and are for my own research and documentation.
Back to the Artist Influence:
In Playground, Anni (based on 12-year-old Ann) is played by Annemarie Wolf and jobe by Gene Gallerano. It begins with the two of them at their computers typing, their conversation projected behind them. Eventually, the video projection stops and they start talking directly to one another, but their dialogue is written as a script of a chat, as though they were still typing. Then they start talking normally, and ultimately they interact directly, inhabiting the same physical space. So their cyber world is translated into another fantasy dimension. This process of translation was really interesting for me. There isn’t a simple one-to-one relationship between their online and in-person interactions. For example, I translated a cybersex session into a scene for the stage, but it doesn’t translate into actual or simulated sex. Anni would not have really had sex with jobe. And jobe—who knows?—perhaps he would not actually have had sex with a child. He never asks Anni where she lives; he never tries to persuade her to meet with him. So, in the play, the cybersex remains dialogue. It’s intense, though.2 Just like in the literature I use as influences, Playground in a way is a live-action book with the audience holding their breath for the next time, or filling in their own through personal experiences.
Hirsch mentions that interacting with people online heightens emotions in ways that real-life interactions don’t, which I can agree on, online I can be 5ft 6, blond with dark eyes, whereas, in reality, I’m 4ft 11, with dyed hair and light eyes, while I've never had the need to change my appearance when it comes to creepy messages I often say i am from America or Sweden so they don’t know my real location. So much of the translation of Ann’s work is about translating that emotion you feel when you’re really caught up with something online, just projecting everything onto it, enjoying the mystery and intrigue it brings into your life and the total anger and horror you feel when things don’t go your way. When you get trolled or get caught up in some crazy comment thread, it can feel way shittier than someone being aggro to your face. I wanted to show that sense of vulnerability and insanity, romance and sadness.3 The idea of relating to a situation/artwork is something i am very interested in as without a connection to something, I don't feel the audience will get anything from the work aside from primary gazes. I want my audience to look into my work and read it for themselves. As Audrey Jaffe has put it, “the reader is a mass character”4, which suggests it's important to make the audience feel represented and included in the work. This can also be true for the audience of a piece of artwork, not only verbally, but a viewer can connect visually as if entering the world of the artwork.
While my work doesn’t expand this far, as I always say “No” to these types of messages as I am not interested in them, I feel the pressure that a young teen would have felt to act grown up and not be seen as a “prude” is something I can relate to. Unlike Hirsch's work, I don't encourage the behaviour I face and allow the sender to shoot themselves in the foot. My experience also differs to Hirsch since, I never used chatrooms until I was 19 (and only to show my younger sister how creepy they could be), although I was getting harassing messages on Instagram and other social media from the age of 16. Having said that, the experience of endless, annoying, inappropriate messages is something that people can relate to as well. The idea of making my experience into a performance or installation is very interesting to me.
2 Ann Hirsch discusses her latest work about ’90s cybersex - Artforum International
3 https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/interviews/verbatim-ann-hirsch-56407/
4 Jaffe, A., 2010. The Affective Life of the Average Man: The Victorian Novel and the Stock-Market Graph (Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press, 2010), pp36.
Comments
Post a Comment