Edinburgh Fringe Festival: Revenge porn, social media, and tech take centre stage

Sick of the Fringe performers hope to inspire new ideas on health research.

Lucy Orr

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As feathers settle at the end of yet another Edinburgh Fringe Festival, this year's event—celebrating its 69th birthday—showed that, despite its staunch old age, material at the fest is increasingly relevant to contemporary discourses on social media, research, science, and technology.

These topics underpinned many of the performances at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. One such example was The Sick of The Fringe conceived by artist, performer, and Wellcome Trust engagement fellow Brian Lobel.

He explained the rationale behind the show to Ars: "As a performer in Edinburgh for the last eight summers, I found myself frustrated by the lack of nuanced conversation, particularly about issues of health, the body, trauma, illness, and disability." He added:

I hope that The Sick of the Fringe is a safer platform for artists making work on their body, providing spaces for nuanced conversation, and opportunities for connections among artists making work on subjects which are difficult, and identities that are marginalised by differences in health and presumed capacity.

I also hope that The Sick of the Fringe provides space for those working in health, medicine, and research—both here in Edinburgh and abroad—to engage with the ideas put forward by artists at the Fringe, which we hope will inspire new research, new policy, and a renewed sense of purpose.

As a member of the Sick of the Fringe team of writers in Edinburgh this year, I was asked to become part of the discourse among artists who are making work that deals directly with their own experiences relating to, say, sickness, racism, or discrimination.

We were asked to diagnose their performances by looking beyond the production quality or entertainment value of the piece, and to instead analyse the ideas presented in the work and its context within scientific and medical inquiry—often pushing writers beyond their comfort zone. While undertaking my diagnosis, I was surprised by the preponderance of performances surrounding social media and sexuality, which suggested an emerging trend in how artists' experiences of new technological platforms are being reflected upon and filtered through to the diverse audiences that attend the Fringe.

Performers would often do their best to turn audience members into collaborators by asking them to tweet or blog questions or reaction.

One such performance was Blush—created by Snuff Box theatre in association with Underbelly Untapped—which presents the primal responses to those whose lives have been affected adversely by online porn.

It included stories that address revenge porn, porn addiction, and looked at how seeking validation and approval through sexual activity online can be harmful. Characters created by Charlotte Josephine were all defined by exposure to sexually explicit online content. A desk bell is used to simulate online notifications of venomously sexist comments. Every so often a blinding camera flash lit the stage to remind the audience that any intimate selfie can instantly become common digital property. And those targeted are left with little in the way of justice as revenge porn laws struggle to be enforced.

Blush certainly brought together familiar narratives and cautionary tales for the technological age.

Continuing that theme, Infinity Pool: A Modern Retelling of Madame Bovary by Bea Roberts explored technology and sexuality by updating Gustave Flaubert’s enduring narrative on adultery for the sexting age. The performance had no actors but—with the use of a TV, a soundboard, several projectors, an animated Powerpoint presentation, and a variety of physical props—it managed to be an immersive performance. Roberts showed staggering flexibility and skill in exploring how tech can lead to loss of sexual intimacy while lubricating virtual betrayal. The evolution of online relationships is detailed here in a flurry of flirtatious e-mails and suggestive sexting.

Dan Simpson.

The vast programme of the Fringe, ensures that—for every serious reflection on the dark side of humanity and technology—there’s some light relief, often taking place in minuscule, dimly lit catacomb cellars with an alternative context for tackling scientific themes. Stand up performances strangely included reason and critical thinking in The Fringe of Reason—Undiluted Brilliance, while Dan Simpson's Artificial Ineloquence warned audiences of the imminent world domination by deep learning AIs, and Dissecting the Joke saw scientists and sceptics take to the stage.

Gareth Morinan’s performance, Graph Giraffe, used Venn diagrams and bell curves to call out "heightism," privilege, and what he believes would be the benefits of living in a "Dataocracy." Using some slightly suspicious statistics to educate the audience about lanky privilege, he suggested height wasn't a simple linear scale because it must be a function of gender, and in fact all privilege factors are also functions of something else. All of which led to some impressive privilege based equations.

Gareth Morinan says height privilege is a thing.

Gareth Morinan

A government ruling through evidence based policy instead of being 99 percent ideologically based, he reckoned, would lead to more data that is recorded and openly available. I’m sure Edward Snowden would approve.

The Wellcome Trust has said that it wants to spend £5 billion on research projects over the next five years—an important shot in the arm for projects such as The Sick of the Fringe, which will be back in Edinburgh in 2017. Meanwhile, a mid-February festival in London is planned.

Lobel told Ars that he has separately been working on There is a Light, a theatrical adaptation of the BRIGHTLIGHT study—the largest research ever undertaken with young adults who suffer from cancer.

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Lucy Orr grew up close to CERN and Fermilab, while her father was busy searching for the Higgs boson (which he eventually found). While waiting for her mutant powers to manifest, Lucy kept herself occupied programming BASIC, reading comics, and playing MUDs. With an extensive career in digital art and animation, she still finds time to pet ferrets, listen to pop punk, and drink cider.