JOSEPHINE SKINNER POSTPRODUCTION OF SELF USING YOUTUBE—A SOCIAL SEARCH FOR FEELING A USB of video documentation accompanies this thesis For additional material, please visit: www.josephineskinner.com PhD Art, Design & Media UNSW | Art & Design March 2015 2 CONTENTS Abstract 5 List of Images 7 INTRODUCTION Postproduction 2.0 17 CHAPTER 1: USING UTOPIAS Introducing YouTopia 29 DIY Utopias 34 Feeling Feedback 40 Escape into the Screen 46 YouTopia: Spectacularly Banal 53 ARTWORKS The end and Needed to talk 59 CHAPTER 2: A SELF-REMIXING SCENARIO Introducing the Self as Medium 73 A Therapeutic Narrative of Self-Remix 79 Performing Convergence: Private Desires & Social Fictions 87 Feeling Intense: The (Media) Power of Now 94 An Aesthetics of Networked Narcissism 99 The Message is You 109 ARTWORK Alone Together 115 CHAPTER 3: IMAGINING COLLECTIVITY Introducing Collectively Shared Lives, Imaginations and Fantasies 125 A Social Media Imagination 130 Formalising Fandom 135 Feeling Social: A Digital Form of Fandom 144 Jamming Collectivity 148 ARTWORK Hopelessly Devoted 163 CHAPTER 4: PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION Introducing Overshare 179 Creatively Capitalising on Emotion 181 A Digital Junk Aesthetic 186 Soft Scratch 190 A New Concrete 196 Freezing Feeling 201 ARTWORK Love Story 211 CONCLUSION Banal Spectacles: The Use of You 229 BIBLIOGRAPHY 237 YOUTUBE-OGRAPHY 225 ARTWORK APPENDIX 261 3 4 ABSTRACT This thesis argues that by selecting and transforming content found on the video- sharing site YouTube, my artwork projects demonstrate the ‘new role of art’ described by Nicolas Bourriaud in Postproduction (2002). However, by moving away from appropriating the products of spectacular, consumer culture to reusing the mediated, affective products of prosumers, I argue they also demonstrate that another profound shift has since taken place in artistic critiques of our relationship with media—one that requires an upgrade of Bourriaud’s thesis to consider the Postproduction of Self. Drawing on both sides of the Media Studies 2.0 debate, my discussion aims to articulate, and through my artworks heighten, the coexistence of critical and digital utopian perspectives of our individual and collective present-day engagement with media. Expanding this theoretical field, I argue that we find the continuing legacies of two utopias—the utopia of the spectacle and digital utopianism—not only at the level of YouTube’s cultural system, but also in the relations of desire and lack expressed within its banal and ‘throwaway’, user-created content. I propose that, as a new form of escapism, the active use of media within our everyday lives presents an evolving, conflicting and complex relationship between self, spectacle and networked society. YouTube’s searchable collections of remixed identities, sampled imaginations, and postproduced fantasies, I argue, make visible an ambiguity: do we inhabit the spectacle’s fictions or do they inhabit us? Through historical and theoretical contextualisation and close analyses, I discuss how my artworks variously contribute to broader discourses, including the aesthetics of digital narcissism, and social media’s flawed potential to produce genuine communities and connections. Situating my thesis in relation to ‘emotional capitalism’ and ‘Post-Internet art’, I propose that contemporary forms of collage that aim to make sense of online excess, and in particular, publicly shared private feeling, parallel marketing strategies such as ‘mood-mining’, which search, collect and utilise affective data. I conclude that artistic formalisations of our digitised versions of self, allow us to reflect on the limitations and liberations, successes and failures, afforded by social media platforms, and the collectively shared affective language that they reveal. 5 6 LIST OF IMAGES INTRODUCTION Figure 1: Jason Rhoades. Installation view, Black Pussy, solo exhibition, David Zwirner, New York, 2007. Courtesy of the Estate of Jason Rhoades, Galerie Hauser & Wirth, and David Zwirner, New York/London. Figure 2: Josephine Skinner. Installation view, Alone Together, 2013, 21 looped videos, stereo sound, reused YouTube content, CRT TVs, street found furniture. Group exhibition, The Social, Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW, 2 February – 13 March, 2013. Photo: Susannah Wimberley. Image courtesy of the artist. Figure 3: Josephine Skinner. Video still, A Whole New World (detail), from Hopelessly Devoted, 2011-2013, HD video, stereo sound, reused YouTube content. Image courtesy of the artist. CHAPTER 1 Figures 4 & 5: Screen grabs from YouTube Spotlight, Our YouTube Community, YouTube, May 1, 2013. See YouTube-ography. Figure 6: Christopher Baker. Installation view, Hello World! or: How I Learned to Stop Listening and Love the Noise, 2008. Photo: Chris Houltberg. Copyright Christopher Baker. Image courtesy of the artist. ARTWORKS The end and Needed to talk Figure 7: Josephine Skinner. Installation view (foreground), The end, 2013, multi- channel HD TV installation, reused YouTube content; (background) Needed to talk, 2013, vinyl text wall installation, reused YouTube content; both in the solo exhibition, The end, Firstdraft Gallery, NSW, 27 November – 13 December, 2013. Photo: Susannah Wimberley. Image courtesy of the artist. Figures 8 & 9: Josephine Skinner. Video stills, (from top) The end Promo: It’s over; The end Promo: It was all a dream, 2013, 4:3 videos, sound, reused YouTube content, broadcast in the Tele Visions Project, Carriageworks, NSW, 2013, and live analogue broadcast, 681.25 MHZ UHF Band. Image courtesy of the artist. 7 Figure 10 & 11: Josephine Skinner. Installation views, The end (details), 2013, solo exhibition, The end, Firstdraft Gallery, NSW, 2013. Photo: Susannah Wimberley. Image courtesy of the artist. Figures 12 & 13: Josephine Skinner. Installation views, Needed to talk, 2013, vinyl text wall installation, reused YouTube content, solo exhibition, The end, Firstdraft Gallery, NSW, 2013. Photo: Susannah Wimberley. Image courtesy of the artist. Figure 14: Source material for Needed to talk, 2013. Screen grab from jaydeman23, (Getting Dumped)|What to Do After (Getting Dumped), YouTube, November 26, 2008. See YouTube-ography. Figures 15 & 16: Josephine Skinner. Installation views, Needed to talk (details), 2013, solo exhibition, The end, Firstdraft Gallery, NSW, 2013. Photo: Susannah Wimberley. Image courtesy of the artist. CHAPTER 2 Figure 17: Vito Acconci. Video still, Centers, 1971. Copyright the artist. Image courtesy of Video Data Bank, <www.vdb.org>. Figure 18: Selfie Syndrome Infographic. Copyright Best Computer Science Schools, 2013, <http://www.bestcomputerscienceschools.net/>. Figure 19: Jaimie Warren. Self-portait as Lasagna Del Ray by thestrutny, 2012, from Celebrities as Food & Food'lebrities, chromogenic print, 50.5 x 61cm, edition of 8. Copyright Jaimie Warren. Image courtesy of the artist and Stills Gallery, Sydney. Figure 20: Screen grab from izzi izumi, Girl Is Trying Too Hard to Take a Selfie for a Whole Minute, YouTube, October 11, 2014. See YouTube-ography. Figure 21: Jackson Eaton. Installation view, Gallery Melfie, from Melfies, 2012-2013, digitally printed cotton t-shirts, edition of 20, group exhibition, Totally Looks Like, Stills Gallery, NSW, 2014. Copyright Jackson Eaton. Image courtesy of the artist and Stills Gallery, Sydney. 8 Figure 22: Jackson Eaton. Massage Melfie (detail), from Melfies, 2012-13, digitally printed cotton t-shirts, edition of 20, group exhibition, Totally Looks Like, Stills Gallery, NSW, 2014. Copyright Jackson Eaton. Image courtesy of the artist. ARTWORK Alone Together Figures 23 & 24: Josephine Skinner. Installation view, Alone Together, 2013, group exhibition, The Social, Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW, 2013. Photo: Susannah Wimberley. Image courtesy of the artist. Figures 25, 26 & 27: Josephine Skinner. Installation views, Alone Together (details), 2013, group exhibition, The Social, Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW, 2013. Photo: Susannah Wimberley. Image courtesy of the artist. CHAPTER 3 Figure 28: John Baldessari. Video still, I Will Not Make Anymore Boring Art, 1971. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York. Figure 29: Candice Breitz. Installation view, Working Class Hero (A Portrait of John Lennon), 2006, solo exhibition, Bawag Foundation, Vienna. Shot at the Culture Lab, Newcastle University, UK, August 2006. 25-channel installation, 25 hard drives, duration 39 minutes, 55 seconds, edition of 6 + A.P. Photo: Wolfgang Wassner. Copyright Candice Breitz. Image courtesy of the artist and Jay Jopling / White Cube. Figure 30: Phil Collins. Production still, the world won’t listen, 2004-07, part three: dunia tak akan mendengar, Jakarta and Bandung, 2007, three-channel synchronized video installation, colour, sound, duration 56 minutes. Image sourced online from Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, <http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/artists/phil- collins/series-video-and-installations/44>. Figure 31: Candice Breitz. Video still, Queen (A Portrait of Madonna) (detail), 2005. Shot at Jungle Sound Studio, Milan, Italy, July 2005, 30-channel installation, 30 hard drives, duration 73 minutes, 30 seconds, edition of 6 + AP. Copyright Candice Breitz. Image courtesy of the artist. 9 Figure 32: Phil Collins. the world won’t listen, 2004-07, part three: dunia tak akan mendengar, Jakarta and Bandung, 2007, three-channel synchronized video projection with sound, poster installation, duration 57 minutes, editon of 3. Copyright Phil Collins. Image courtesy of Shady Lane Productions, Berlin, and Tanya