This is the project I have been working on during my MA at Central Saint Martins. My research focused on investigating and visualizing the diffusion of viral contents.
For my study, I selected the case of Tiziana Cantone: a woman from Naples who committed suicide last September 2016 after a series of intimate videos of her went viral worldwide.
I therefore made a short documentary, playing on the metaphore of the Aristotelian concept ofCatharsis intended as the ancient greek religious ritual. The rite consisted in going to the theatre and watching a play which represented common fears and pities embodied by the actors. By witnessing the killing of the main character, the audience went through its own purification. If we consider the social network as the theatre of several different representation of fears and pity, and the protagonist of those videos as the protagonists who embody those fears and pity; throughout the viewing of them, we undergo a sort of purification.
For example, by watching the hard video of Tiziana Cantone, I identify myself in her and I purify myself from the negative thinking (according to the conventional decency) of doing something similar in my real life such as recording a hard video while I have sex with different man. In order for that purification to happen, though, I have to assist to the death of the protagonist, consequentially I punish her myself, by blaming and condemning her act.
The issues starts when behind that act represented by that persona (intended with its etymologically meaning // persona: mask, character played by an actor) is hidden an actual human being, as in the case of the viral videos.
I finally presented her story writing a paper in the form of a Greek Play.
The report is divided into two parts: The Tragedy, through which I theatrically report her story, and a series of footnotes where I present the research I have been carrying out to try to understand the way people interacted with, and reacted to, those videos.
In the Greek Tragedy the role of the chorus is to bring the action forward, in the same way I used the comments and parodies people shared online for writing the chorus part.
You will find them in the bibliography, where they are all listed. The result is an archive of the levels of cruelty we have been able to reach.
I’m currently working on the Tragedy layout. The publication will be ready soon!
Please contact me for more information.
