FAMEHUNGRY is a helter-skelter nose dive into the TikTok universe and the attention economy, asking what it means to be an artist now – created and performed by award-winning performance artist, writer and director Louise Orwin.
The show posits whether social media is distracting us from the apocalypse, but also provides a platform for an intergenerational conversation and collaboration between one famehungry Millennial Performance Artist (Orwin) and one famehungry Gen Z TikTok star (Jaxon Valentine). Orwin and Jax are both queer artists who exploit their lives for content, but who work in different forms: one does this IRL [‘in real life’] in theatres, and the other does this online.
FAMEHUNGRY is performed simultaneously for an in-person audience and a TikTok Live audience – the caveat being that both audiences will experience a different show. Mentored live by Jax throughout, Orwin cosplays as a TikToker performing for the live TikTok audience hunting desperately for fame, fortune and likes as the theatre audience become voyeurs to Orwin’s quixotic journey. Both audiences become entangled in a seemingly endless game which asks what we’re willing to watch, and why we’re so desperate to be watched.
Fusing dance, performance art and an innovative multimedia set up starring live cameos and participation from Jax and other famous TikTokers, FAMEHUNGRY questions where the two distinct disciplines of contemporary performance art and content creation meet, and why a performance artist might turn to TikTok to carve out a career in a hyper-capitalist economy that is increasingly hostile to the arts. In a world where all roads lead to TikTok, FAMEHUNGRY asks how social media is changing us and the art we make, what young people think about the future, and what it feels like to be hungry for fame in the face of a world on fire.
FAMEHUNGRY is Louise Orwin’s fourth show presented at Summerhall as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (Humiliation Piece, A Girl and a Gun, Oh Yes Oh No). It is being made with support from Arts Council England, The Space, Colchester Arts Centre, The Place, Pleasance, Theatre Deli and BAC. Made in partnership with Dr. Amy Orben, University of Cambridge researcher and TikTok star Jaxon Valentine.
