Ashley Doherty talks to director Tom Birch about Justjohn@deepend.com talks to a Paperclip and other Stories, a montage play inspired by http://boards.4chan.org/b/, to be showcased at the Drama and Theatre Arts Graduate Show at the end of the month.
Justjohn@deepend.com talks to a Paperclip and other Stories, is quite a quirky title tell us what the show is about.
The finished product is a montage play and it’s more of a discussion than a story. It’s about moral relativism on the internet and how this links to black humour, we try to question where and when it’s appropriate to joke about certain taboo subjects.
There’s another thread running through the piece that explores the concept of anonymity and how that works online, how people are more likely to judge others on what they say rather than who they really are. A lot of online communities focus on the promotion and maintenance of anonymity and so we try to explore that aspect as well.
Why do you think this discussion about “online identity” and the dominance of social networking and the internet is so important in the here and now?
To be honest, I struggle to find material online that isn’t relevant to this debate. I’ve been particularly inspired by the website 4chan, I’m fascinated by it. I think that we are the “facebook generation”, and although I don’t really know how I sit with that title, I think the development of the internet, social media and websites like 4chan will be the things that people will look back at to find things out about our generation. It’s an entire movement of its own. I mean, looking at the specifics of 4chan, the refresh rate of the page is massive but it only holds around 10,000 images so the whole board changes about three times a day. I like that about it – it’s an organic being, a living thing in itself.
I also want to ask the question, “Why do we need right and wrong when we have ‘like’ and ‘dislike’?”
Do you think the fast-paced nature of the website then is a reflection of contemporary society as a whole?
Yeah, maybe there are elements of that. The situation that allows a website like that to exist has always been there but the only thing that hasn’t existed is the technology to make it so, in other words, the prevailing conditions to make it materialise have been right but the ammunition has always been there – people have always made jokes about inappropriate things. In that sense we haven’t changed at all so it’s not uniquely contemporary. That’s what I like about 4chan, it’s not so much something that couldn’t have happened, and it’s more like a testament to how we’ve always been.
Do you think our contemporary obsession with social media and online communities has changed our perception of art in anyway?
I don’t know if it’s changed our perception of art. But, without being too clichéd, I think it’s brought people closer together, it’s aligned people in terms of sensibility rather than geographical or cultural boundaries. It has thrown up otherwise missed similarities: like the correlation between Finnish and English humour. In some ways it shores up cultural prejudices as well.
Some would argue that facebook is a contributing factor in our growing detachment from our “natural selves.” Are you for or against this argument?
I think that a self-critical use of facebook can actually be very useful. But, I think that a self-critical use of anything does what it says on the tin – makes us self aware. This argument about the “bad” that facebook’s doing just highlights another question for me: what are we moving away from? It relies on the idea of an initial state and I don’t think I believe in that concept. After all, before we all joined facebook we weren’t all pure and angelic. And, we were always going to be born into what we were going to be born into. In saying that, I do think that there’s a reductive quality to facebook, there’s only so much stuff you could put on your profile, everything on there is up there with an agenda and as long as you remember that, there’s no harm in it.
Social networking sites seem to have a certain pretence of encouraging a collective experience for their users but underneath, they’re actually driven by a fierce individualism. Is this a tension that you’ll be exploring in your piece?
In a way, yes. I’m more interested in exploring the narcissistic facet of individualism. For example, in one of the sketches we focus on a character called PERV_boi (Whom, like all of our characters are titled according to their usernames). The way that we worked with it was that we found something we wanted to say and connected it to the bigger issue of black humour and internet porn, then we tried to make it materialise by finding a way of staging it. PERV_boi looks at girls on facebook, particularly pictures of this one girl and sees it as his personal porn collection. But, he looks at these pictures because the girl has put them up there to be looked at, so he’s rationalised his behaviour. There’s a complicity in it. He digs himself into narcissism and the objectification of this girl, so there’s a trade-off and a naivety of self-esteem.
I think the development of the internet, social media and websites like 4chan will be the things that people will look back at to find things out about our generation. It’s an entire movement of its own.
So, you’re exploring the complexities of transaction of information is some way?
I think so, she’s commodifying herself and she sees herself as a product because she only presents her “best” self. I mean that’s what facebook is really, a distillation of what we perceive as the best parts of ourselves. And with this in mind, I also want to ask the question, “Why do we need right and wrong when we have ‘like’ and ‘dislike’?”
In terms of the show itself, is it a devised piece? And, what did you use as stimuli to come up with the sketches?
Sort of. We come into the rehearsal room with an issue, some sort of stimulus material and work from there and build it up. I like working with data. I think the link between empirical data and drama is really interesting. I think if you can get statistics to speak for themselves and then find a way of putting them on stage, that’s half the battle really.
Looking back at your time on the Drama and Theatre Arts course, and particularly you specialism (Directing) what would you say you have gained from it?
It makes you far more aware of process than product. I had done the act of directing before I started university. But now I understand that process leads to product. I came here to do the directing specialism and again it comes down to maths: I’ve had a lot of time spent on my work, that’s what makes the course so special. Directing turns you into a realist; I think if you come out at the end of our course and you’re not really pragmatic about working in theatre, then you probably weren’t listening. Because no-one’s under any illusion of how difficult it is. It’s also made me realise how much I’ve still to learn. I think drama graduates are employable because we’re realists, we’re creative problem solvers and we know how to do great things with very little money.
Finally, tell us what audiences can expect from your show.
Well, firstly and most importantly, it’s fun. I want people to enjoy themselves. But, at the same time I want people to check themselves for laughing at things they really shouldn’t be laughing at.
Justjohn@deepend.com talks to a Paperclip and other Stories will be showing in the Studio Theatre, Queen Margaret University, Musselburgh, EH21 6UU between Wedneday 30th March and Saturday 2nd April. Reserve places at qmugradshow2011@gmail.com