2009
A Social Media Performance
In 2009, Walton created the video project, “F’Book, What My Friends Are Doing In Facebook”. This project explored the relationship between video, mainstream social media and issues of public/private space by looking critically at the social media platform maintained by Facebook.
Walton was immediately intrigued with the activity of the “Status Update” feature, where friends were sharing mundane, domestic activities of their private lives and treating them as events. He noticed that the updates could be read poetically and autobiographically and responded by simply selecting particular updates and using them as scripts for a series of video performances. Walton would then interpret these updates and reenact them in his own home. The videos took the form of very short films that were uploaded back onto the Facebook Wall of the subject, thus circulating the performances back into a public space.
Over the course of two months, I created more than 50 short videos. These videos were often reposted, copied and distributed by other users, thus creating a virtual feedback loop.
"Because Facebook is a public space, I was interested in how our private living rooms, kitchens and backyards are becoming more shared and homogeneous through technology, mass consumerism and popular culture. I am also wonderning about how we are watching and listening to others and how this information is going to be used to influence, shape and control our future actions.
Selected Press:
Routledge Publication:
Net Works: Case Studies in Web Art and Design. Edited by Xtine Burrough
