NYC Persona Play
Anyone who dreams of a cosmopolitan lifestyle will agree the ultimate personification of this is Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw. “In New York, they say you’re always looking for a job, a boyfriend, or an apartment.” Miss Bradshaw was referring to the chaos of living in a city with over 8 million inhabitants. Large cities attract ambitious people striving for flawlessness – the perfect career, partner, and life. The catalyst for sending these stars-in-their-eyes neurotics into overdrive? Social media.
Photo of a model covered in meat at "New York, New York, Happy, Happy," featured in Purple Magazine, November 11, 2013. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
Luckily, Carrie was safe from the clutches of brutal Instagram, where FOMO over last night’s exclusive event is bottled up and fed to us in our morning doom scroll. Major cities like New York, London, and Paris are glittering backdrops for a new generation of people trying to ‘make it’ - whether they have or not, they can make it seem so in an exquisitely fine-tuned photo dump.
11 years ago, modern artist Ed Fornieles created a parody of this phenomenon in New York, New York, Happy, Happy, an immersive live performance. Over 150 guests were invited to a Met Gala-esque charity ball and given archetypal New York personas such as ‘Art Talk’, ‘Children Negative’ and ‘Selfie’. They were told to wear these identities like a ballgown and mingle with each other, providing for a dizzying and doubtlessly unbearable evening. For one night, the bragging we are all guilty of on social media came to life. People talked at each other in totally choreographed personalities. I know, unprecedented(!)
The purpose of these events is to sit back and watch the evening unfold into chaos. The artist stresses that these prescribed personalities allow for “a raw, hedonistic energy” already lurking beneath social interaction to come to the surface within the parameters of performance. “The main logic was escalation,” he tells me. “Things got more and more intense,” assured by a carefully orchestrated guestlist full of faux hedonists and narcissists. What was originally a normal evening in New York City descended into the realm of “orgiastic,” helped along by their invitations instructing specific tasks, such as getting closer to a specific character. “Naked bodies were brought out with food on them,” he explains, a reference to a scene in Sex and the City.
A subconscious tap into the psyche, these events are based on the concept of Nordic LARP (live-action role-playing games) originating from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. ‘Bleeding’ is a term used in these games, meaning your own identity impedes on and interferes with the character you’re playing. More interestingly, the character finds itself bleeding into your own identity in return. “By playing a character, you become aware that you yourself are a construction. You yourself are just a bunch of stories that you tell yourself and other people, and that you’re performing.”
He explains the aspect of social media that captures his attention; “you’re given a bunch of implicit rules that you begin following without having to be told what they are.” A 5D manifestation of social media, just how much power does an event like this hold over its participants?
“That night actually ended in a divorce, which was quite interesting.”
As we scroll through endless photo dumps, curated personas, and virtual social circles, we might be getting to a truth that’s hard to confront: online and offline, we’re all playing roles, consciously or not.
Photo of the writhing chaos at "New York, New York, Happy Happy" by Gerard Garvey, featured in Gayletter. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
