Contested Spaces: Social Media, Big Data and Politics

(Originally posted 23 April 2013)

Being an unfunded full-time PhD student means having to find ways to earn money without long time-commitments. Luckily, King’s offers many temping opportunities that are far more interesting than the usual data entry or envelope stuffing. Last week, I got to be an event assistant at the Contested Spaces conference organised by King’s Policy Institute and eBay. From greeting VIPs in the morning to being a roving microphone, I basically got paid to meet and learn from some of the leading experts in politics and digital media.

 

The conference, focusing on social media, ‘big data’ and politics, had two sides/ Firstly, how politicians can use social media and big data to improve campaigns – for connecting with voters, spreading messages, organising networks of volunteers and tailoring their campaigns to the specific needs of voters identified through the data about ourselves we scatter across the internet. Secondly, what social media can (and can’t) tell us about politics, such as the public reaction to the Arab Spring which has been so widely connected with Twitter in the press.

The event brought together speakers from all over the world, from professors to some serious VIPs in the digital world, including Tod Cohen. Vice-President of eBay, and Jen O’Malley-Dillon, Deputy Campaign Manager for Obama’s re-election. If you’d like to learn more about the link between digital media and politics, videos of all of the panels are available to watch here. You can also listen to Ms O’Malley-Dillon, together with Ian Spencer and Bret Jacobson from Red Edge, discuss What can UK politics learn from the success of ‘Obama 2012’? here.

As you would expect from a conference on digital and social media, the event created quite a buzz on Twitter, as people tweeted their thoughts and questions to the speakers. You can catch up on the conversation from the conference at #ContestedSpaces.

Stupid F*@#ing Bird @ Woolly Mammoth, Washington DC

-          “Is that a seagull?”                                

-          “It’s just a bird. A stupid fucking bird”.

After the thoroughly traditional Newsies on Broadway, I was ready for something a bit more transgressive when I reached D.C. As the title would suggest, Stupid Fucking Bird, Aaron Posner's postmodern take on Chekhov’s The Seagull, certainly didn’t disappoint.

The enormous Latin American Studies Association Conference didn’t leave me with a huge amount of free time to explore D.C., so it was sheer luck that on my – rather long! – walk from the National Gallery of Art to the conference I happened to walk past the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and their rather eye-catching posters for their latest production.

You’d be forgiven for guessing from the poster that the play is about Twitter. It’s actually far more interesting and original than that, but social media does have a very important presence in the lobby (see #sfl). With ‘Pinspiration stations’ and tweets projected onto the walls, the audience are encouraged to interact with both the text of the original play and the very idea of art.

The play itself questions the form and purpose of theatre just as Chekhov had done with his original over a century before, while bringing Chekhov's famous subtext out into the open. It is self-reflexive, self-referential, and completely breaks the fourth wall, frequently addressing the audience for input. Further nods to Chekhov include a small pile of leaves hinting at the bucolic setting of his plays, and Banksy style mural of the great Russian playwright on the back wall.

Just like Chekhov's Konstantin, the main character Conrad (Brad Koed) expresses his belief that theatre – at least in Eastern Europe in the late 19^th century  - used to have the power to change society. ‘Why would you want to change the world?’ asks Dev (Darius Pierce), the most grounded character in the production.  The question, like the production as a whole, makes us consider what we, as an audience, want to get out of the theatre. While Stupid Fucking Bird won't change the world, it did give me everything I want from a play. Despite the distancing effect of all this experimentation with form, there are still moments when the audience completely lose ourselves in the play; there is shock, happiness, despair and a whole lot of laughs, interlaced with really thought-provoking moments. I was incredibly impressed that one production could have so many different effects on me. Since I saw the production, on the second night of previews, it has unsurprisingly garnered rave reviews.

I later learned that Woolly Mammoth is just one of a host of new experimental theatres that have popped up in D.C. in recent years. Apparently new zoning laws make it far more economically beneficial for developers to turn the first few floors of their new buildings into public arts spaces. If the quality of productions at Woolly Mammoth is anything to judge by, it would seem this law is paving the way for a new wave of exciting, experimental theatre in D.C. It makes me wish the city weren't quite so far away!  

Stupid Fucking Bird runs at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Co, Washington D.C. until June 23 2013. Full information and tickets are available here.

Anne Chmelewsky on Through the Looking Screen @ RADAR2012

In Through the Looking Screen we meet Annabel Clarke, a shy young woman who creates a much more confident, 'popular' persona online, and stalks the man she likes on Facebook rather than talking to him in real life. It's a story that will surely be very familiar to many people today, but what makes Anne Chmelewsky's production stand out is that this thoroughly modern tale is the basis of a comic opera. The juxtaposition of new and old is striking, adding an extra layer of laughs as Clare Presland lends her stunning opera voice to phrases like 'Angry Birds, Words With Friends...'. 

Clare Presland as Annabel Clarke, with Elizabeth Challenger on piano

Anne is no stranger to experimenting with opera, having written The Office: The Opera for Comic Relief in 2009, but she admits that it is still a challenge to convince audiences that opera isn't old-fashioned and boring. I spoke with her about those issues, her inspiration and advice for fellow creatives before the show.

Firstly, I asked Anne how she came up with the idea to mix the very new and modern concept of social networking with the traditional form of comic opera. She explained that while at college she wrote The Office: The Opera not aiming to make opera accessible, but just to make it funny. "Talking about staplers and photocopying is just funny if it's sung". As that show was a success, Anne thought she would write another one. "I have a friend who was an amazing opera singer [Presland], who I knew would be really funny in a one-woman show", she explains, adding that the subject of online dating and social networks came from her part-time job in recruitment, where many people in the office spend all day attached to their online profiles. 

"People who are creatives use Facebook, Twitter etc for our work but we forget - not to generalise - how much people in offices use that stuff, to the point where I've seen people - without naming any names! - who meet people on nights out and then Google them the next day and are like 'Ooo, I don't know...', and really trust what they see on the web. The idea was to come up with a character who was totally larger than life, totally into all that stuff, and who trusted what was on the internet more than her own instincts".

When it comes to herself though, Anne isn't a social media addict - unless she has a show to promote of course, like most people in today's theatre industry. The show illustrates how social media is changing the way we interact, and Anne notices this not only in the dating world, but in the arts. She admits it is very easy to become jealous or insecure as people constantly tweet all of their successes and positive reviews, while censuring anything bad. It's important for creatives to remember that Twitter doesn't present the whole truth and not judge themselves accordingly.

Surprisingly, Anne was never a fan of opera, or even musicals, until she began studying opera at music college. Instead, her background is in writing film scores, which is a completely different process, with much less creative freedom. It wasn't until she lived with Clare Presland and began attending her performances, that she really got into opera.

"When I wrote The Office: The Opera, it was as a slight rejection of opera that was too elitist, but that actually got me to watch a lot more opera, and I realised that actually opera is really cool. It's just that sadly sometimes it is performed in places where the seats are too expensive and people can't afford to go, so people have got this view of it as really horrible, and a really unnatural way of singing. But actually, if you go to watch an opera, even if you don't like the story, the singing is always incredible".

Anne explains that her inspiration comes from the masters of operetta, Gilbert and Sullivan, while the score contains a lot of pastiche of classic works. "Musically, it's very traditional", but it is that juxtaposition with the subject material which makes the show work.

While Anne had never had any problems convincing musically-minded friends to attend the show in London, she was shocked by the resistance to her work at Edinburgh Festival. "I'd go and give out flyers to people saying 'It's a one woman comedy about online dating', and they'd say 'Yeah, cool!', until they'd see that it was an opera and be like 'Take your flyer back!'". She had to make a real statement, dressing up in a wedding dress as a desperate dater, to convince potential audiences that her show would be funny and worth seeing. She explains that often people would say they didn't like opera but when asked which operas they didn't like it would transpire that they had never seen any. However, she is positive about the future, with moves like ENO and the Royal Opera House selling cheaper tickets or posting online trailers encouraging new audiences to discover opera for the first time. "People still think you have to wear a ball gown and your seat will cost £150, but it's not true any more". 

Anne did everything herself for this show: story, libretto, music, direction, even stage managing and lighting. Writing modern comic operas seems to be quite a lonely experience at the moment, and Anne wishes that there were more people doing it so they could have "a little collective" who battle against the opera stereotypes together. She has more ideas up her sleeves for future shows though, even if she has to do them alone. However, she is very conscious of falling into the trap of thinking "This is funny because people are singing it in opera voice"; it is essential that her material is funny on its own and not just because of the juxtaposition between opera and real life. While she'd love to find a more experienced librettist to collaborate with, to create a really tight, funny libretto, she realises that in the current climate of limited budgets and  scarce funding, you have to take on every role yourself to just get your show out there, until you can afford more professionals. 

"Sometimes people say 'I really want to be a writer but I'm not sure if I'd find a director, a designer, a stage manager...', that kind of thing. Well, you know what, why don't you do all that stuff yourself to start with, to show your work off. You might even discover a new talent. I've discovered I'm quite good at stage managing - that could be a second career!"

Through Anne's dedication and willingness to all the work herself, as well as a heap of talent, Through the Looking Screen was eventually a success in Edinburgh and drew rapturous applause at the Bush Theatre. Anne says she hopes the show will have a run in the new year, but it depends whether she can convince  more people that a modern comic opera is worth seeing. The audience at RADAR definitely believe that it is.