LifeStream (2020)
This durational online performance questions issues of online surveillance and blurs the line between public and private information through the lens of social media.
During the first month of lockdown I decided to start a self- imposed surveillance system that would function as an ongoing health monitor and a way to signal to the world that I’m still alive. As there was an increasing interest in Livestreams on Instagram I used the platform to broadcast my waking life continuously for a full week.
On the final day of this performance, rather than streaming the usual content, I broadcasted a simulation of my home, myself and my partner who were accurately replicated in The SIMS 4 video game. The life of the sim characters, bound by the borders of their/our home, nearly identically replicated our own life at the time of quarantine. The characters' behavioral pattern mimicked our reality in all of its mundanity.
In the writer and artist Daniel Greenberg’s words: "The work is a sort of Unreality TV Show. Just as we have come to appreciate Reality TV for its dialogue, dramatic devices, and meme-making capacity, we can appreciate LifeStream for its surrender to the embrace of boredom and slow storytelling."