Group Project - Why?

For many weeks now I have been one part of The FiFi and Gwynnie show. I am of course the Gwynnie part.

It all started when myself and classmate Thea Plews shared our hatred for the internet. I am not complety against it, I don't mind emailing and news but as for the rest I can't stand it. the internet is making our world an unsociable place where the only communication is made through typing and a screen. If you were wanting a proper conversation with someone then I believe the only way to do it is face to face. Another aspect of the internet I hate is the lack of privacy, for example on face book when ever two of my friends have a conversation I can see it, as it shows up when I log in. I don't want to know what everyone else is doing all of the time and I certainly don't want everyone seeing what I'm up to all of the time. Once you have written something, posted, emailed, messaged etc somehting on the internet you are in essence then virtual. This blog would never have been created if it wasn't for Virtuality and Performance.

Back to our group project, we were asked to create a piece of work on any subject that interested us to do with the internet and performance. Ian (our tutor) gave us the idea of working as a double act. thus creating FiFi and Gwynnie our alto egos that were obsessed with the internet. We created the page 'Homage to the Internet' to let our alter egos come to life and speak to the other internet fans around the world. On this page we expressed our false love for the internet and tried to illuminate the internets bad points by glorifying them. This included, Happy Slapping, Sick Videos form Youtube, Chat rooms were peadophile have been grooming young children and been caught. basically telling people that these were not bad things and how ease they are to use. We looked into performing with a fake identity, something done on a day to day basis. It is very simple to create a new you onthe internet and also to steal someone elses identity. The internet does not ask for comfirmation you are that person before setting up a facebook account, you can become anyone. WE decided to focus on Internet Chat room, performing with a false identity, Blogging and Happy slapping as these showed different kinds of performance by everyday people. We researched out of class time and met up each week to discuss new ideas. The rehearsal process went well and we set up another blog to form a script together whilst apart for the christmas holidays. This also enabled us to discuss our ideas face to face as we had done the work seperatly.

As Thea and I shared similar views on the internet it was easy for us to pick ideas that we felt would be appropriate for our Blog. One of the major problems that we faced was as we both were not computer or internet savvy it took us a while to understand how it worked. Our troubles with the internet, I felt, put me off working on one. After an hour of sitting at a computer i become irritable as it seems to take me a lot longer than anyone else to get things done. From the begining we worked with pen and paper, a foreign concept for some in highly computerised society. We researched into other performance on the internet to find a stlye to work with. Askaninja was one that interesed me as he used a comic approach to answer questions and was shown in a simple formatt usually with one camera angle and only lasting up to 5 minutes. We wnated our performance to look homemade by two people who were socially inept. We tried to use comedy within our performance as we would be showing disturbing material we want the audience to become in a sense unaware that what they are laughing at is serious and for them to then realise that it is a serious problem and that the material shown is not funny in the slightest. I have been researching news stories and articles relating to the material chosen and I could not believe all the sadness the internet has created. Article after Articles on chat room peodophillia, Posting of deaths on the internet, chat rooms dedicated to death and suicide, rape, incest and more. I ask myself 'how can this go on without being noticed?' does society not care enough to find out what is out there on the internet and how easy it is to find? As more and more children sign up to chat rooms, websites and more are they fully aware of the dangers, I have always been told from a young age 'you do not meet people off the internet' and i can see why, with more news stories appearing everyday about young teenagers meeting strangers off the internet and never returning home. As we live in a society were now young parents are logging in on a daily basis will this message get lost in time? I sincerley hope not, this is something I feel very strongly about and is why I hate the internet so much.
FiFi and Gwynnie show all of the above on their blog and video to show the audience the dangers on the internet.