“Lol she should of tried wedging the rope inbetween her pussy, and rubbed up and down it vigorously. Maybe the juices would of melted it lol.” - Syd squid, YouTube comment
That was the moment when I realised how far removed I had become from my original context. My film ‘Hanging in the Woods’ had gone viral. It had taken two days for me to go from artist to clickbait. Things started heating up in the comment sections of articles. People were aghast and appalled that I was an artist, a woman and to top it off naked. I was a talentless idiot intent on getting fame and attention by any means necessary. I shamed women by baring my naked body for the public to see. I had become the embodiment of my own practice.
I lost control of my own image; an image I had spent years constructing through education and the development of my personality. Now it was out of my hands and in the control of writers and editors who viewed me as a content provider for a 24/7 international media market. I was clickbait. - Name jan Subject hanging in the tree Message hey, i’ve just saw that movie and come to conclusion you’re dumb, I thought you can find that info interesting, if you want peoples to make fun of you, plz make more dumb movies like that to look even dumber, I suppose popularity you gonna gain from that kind of “art” will make your parents and cousins really proud of you … -
For the next two weeks I did at least an interview a day, talking to newspapers, magazines, radio shows and TV. Even inserting myself physically into the media was not allowing me to gain back control over the image that was being constructed. I was at the mercy of leading questions, personal agendas, and presumptions.
- Name Martin Subject Hanging in woods – international acclaim Message You got stuck in the rope and shot this on camera. And now you pretend that this is art? What kind of nonsense is this? You should be ashamed to publish such bullshit. -
I had entered the hyper-real. Every trace I had online was now being scrutinised, judged and expanded upon. My image and persona was being created in my viewers, or the viewers on my content. My self was indistinguishable from my media self, as the news articles and my social media profiles intertwined. News articles were getting their facts wrong but I wasn’t going to correct them in order to further the misinformation, misrepresentation, misreadings and misinterpretations. I didn’t go into the comment sections on articles or my YouTube or Vimeo to correct others or defend myself. I am intent on this experience becoming a piece of work in itself.
