Yuki Uebo

Erving Goffman said 'Life itself is a dramatically enacted thing'. The project uncovers the pre-scripted self performance in society and challenges the dominance and limitation of the form of online/offline communication by intervention.

Recycling Script explores the enjoyment of controlling self-images while playing ideal characters and expanding fantasy on SNS, as well as highlighting the fragile and shallow types of communication built on imaginary online identities and figures. I created an app which allows the user to copy and paste scripts of characters from animations and films and deliver them into social network’s chat. The intervention is a critique on the easiness of transforming one’s identity and self-branding society.

In the Speakers' Corner Ring project, I challenge the conventional pre-scripted mode of performance in Speakers' Corner. Most people at Speakers' Corner were either preaching or shouting what they wanted to say and were not inclined to listen to others. It was an entirely unilateral, pre-scripted performance and impossible to hold a proper debate. I linked up several ladders and presented a topic from news website to participants, so that each person can stand on a ladder in a close circle and discuss it. The original function of Speakers' Corner to provide a place for holding civilised debate in public was restored by simple ladders.