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What inspired you to become a performance artist?

I think I always knew I wanted to be an artist, and have always been inspired by artists making work at the fringes of the mainstream. The kind of work that makes you feel alive and complicit; the kind of work that makes you fall in love with this weird world again or allows you space to feel into complex, nuanced questions. When I started making my own work it was because I wanted to make my own version of that, but also because I realised that making work could become a great way to investigate issues or trends or massive knotty questions that I had about myself and the world around me. I often see myself as a kind of gonzo journalist reporting back from the front lines of weird cultural phenomena through the medium of performance art.

How did the concept for FAMEHUNGRY come about?

Like most of my work, the concept and question for FAMEHUNGRY began to appear in my life with a slow trickle. At the time I was entering into my thirties and beginning to ask big questions about what it means to be an artist making the kind of work that seemed to be in its death throes, amongst the emergence of lots of more popular digital culture and platforms. As someone who’s always loved video and film, and been kind of obsessed with the wild west of the internet, I felt simultaneously worried about what this potentially meant for my work, intrigued and curious about what it might mean for the future, and also increasingly bored by the hugely negative and dismissive opinions around internet culture and the ‘kids today’. Around that time I also met Jax, who was then a 15 year old content creator with an audience of 50k followers on TikTok- which obviously seemed wild to me! I’ve never performed for an audience of 50k people, and it made me wonder what that experience is like? How does it change you, or your experience of the world? I wasn’t sure immediately what the show or the exact investigation was, but I knew I wanted to interview Jax, and over the course of four years of talking (online, of course!) I eventually began FAMEHUNGRY with Jax as my collaborator, and those four years of conversations became a kind of tapestry for the basis of the show.

FAMEHUNGRY begins with a question of what it means for a performance artist to take on the medium of TikTok, but unravels into a bigger question of what it means to be an artist making work in an environment which is increasingly censored, hyper-capitalist and risk-averse. Which all, of course, makes it sound very academic and high-falutin, but really that isn’t quite the vibe- it’s more high concept meets massive terrifying questions meets very very silly. The show also asks why we want to be watched, or why we want to watch each other constantly online, and wonders about the humanity of all of us just obsessively watching each other play out our silly little tasks and silly lives online. Perhaps it’s not all as bad as we think? Perhaps we’re just all looking for some kind of connection, or hope, or to make sense of it all? My wish for this show is that this isn’t another one of those shows about the internet which makes you feel terrified about the future, because honestly talking to Jax, who I’ve crowned as a rep for Gen Z in the show (sorry Jax!), actually made me feel really positive about the future, despite the sense of dystopia we’re all feeling right now and I hope that shines through. I think one thing that I find really difficult about the fearmongering around social media is the sense that of hopelessness it leads to for the next gens- which feels really unfair to me. It was a joy to use the process of making FAMEHUNGRY to do a bit of a role-reversal and let Jax mentor me and teach me about their world, which has been a really fun thing to play with in the show, and kind of in life. Jax is very wise!

As FAMEHUNGRY blends performance art with live TikTok, what challenges did you face in merging these two mediums?

Alongside talking to Jax, part of the lengthy research process for the show was being mentored by Jax to become a bonafide TikToker. This meant posting every day for nearly a year, according to the pro-tips I gleaned from Jax in order to gain as many likes and followers as I could on my account. This was an interesting process because in many ways, what content creators do and what performance artists do is quite similar: many of us find ourselves exploiting our lives for content; creating attention grabbing material to put our message across; and often, in order to hold that attention for as long as possible, this means doing very silly things in front of an audience! However I quickly found that there were lots of things that you couldn’t do on TikTok that I would often do on stages in my work- mostly due to the hyper-conservative nature of the platform. Discovering this was a bit of a gift in the process and has become a key part of the work: how far can I push those lines on TikTok, what can I get away with?

The way that the show functions is that I perform simultaneously for two audiences in two mediums with very different rules: every night I perform live on TikTok to a TikTok audience, in front of the theatre audience. The theatre audience get a behind the scenes look at everything that’s going on (including some things that can’t be shared on TikTok!) and get to witness the journey live to see how far I can push the game of TikTok hunting for likes and fame and fortune, whilst also trying to ask big questions about how we view and experience art now. This has meant me being kicked off TikTok quite a lot during the show, which creates a very challenging but very live experience!

The Edinburgh Fringe is a whirlwind! How does doing a preview show at Jacksons Lane help you bridge the gap between pre-Fringe preparation and performing at the festival?

FAMEHUNGRY will be premiering at Edinburgh Fringe this year- which is super exciting but also terrifying! This will be my first show that I’ve premiered there (in the past I’ve taken up work which had already premiered in London), which means it’s even more important to get the work in front of audiences before it heads up. Especially as the show has so many live and risky elements, it means that you can only do so much in rehearsal without testing it in front of a live audience. This kind of work definitely can’t be made in a vacuum! The show at Jacksons Lane will be our final chance to test and tweak the work before heading to Edinburgh so please come and help us get it in ship-shape! Sharing work that isn’t finished is one of the scariest but most rewarding things we do as artists, so I’m hoping that audiences can come along with that understanding knowing that they are becoming an essential part of the journey of the work.

What can audiences expect from your performance and why should they come to see it?

FAMEHUNGRY is a wild ride of a show that asks big important questions about the world today, how and why we consume what we consume, and somehow within it all asks questions about what it means to be human – all wrapped up in the silliness and fun of where TikTok meets Performance Art. Plus a side of existential dread, of course, a few surprises along the way, and a big juicy finale. You should come see it if you are interested in social media, questions of big tech, or how young people see the future, or if you’re a fan of performance art and contemporary performance- or me! Also if you’re a TikToker or content creator please come! We always love hearing from you.

You can catch FAMEHUNGRY on Wednesday 24 July at 7:30pm. Book your tickets here.