I Am Sharing

I Am Sharing is an experimental solo performance based around live sampling of social media content posted in real-time by the audience.

I Am Sharing is intended as an exploration in sound of social media as the dominant medium for our interaction with the world today. Audience members share social media posts for me to sample and mold into a new sonic work created in the moment. Each performance is unique to the event as I build a performance by sampling and manipulating whatever I’m given.

I originally called the performance “I Am Sharing in a Room”, in reference to Alvin Lucier, but it’s not really a generative work and has more in common with John Cage’s “Imaginary Landscapes no. 4”. So I renamed it “I Am Sharing”.

I Am Sharing was first performed at Box Hill Institute on 20th of November, 2018 in a half hour improvisation that was streamed live on the Clan Analogue Twitch channel. Originally I intended for the performance to not run through a PA. The audience would have to plug headphones into their phones and tune into the stream to hear anything, despite being physically present in the room with me. But it was pointed out that the bandwidth pressures of so many people in a room trying to access the internet would put the experience of the performance at risk, so practicality over concept won out. Here is an edited-down video of this performance:

Following this successful trial of the concept, I presented I Am Sharing again in the Jolt Sonic Festival at Footscray Community Arts Centre on Saturday, 21st of September, with a lineup that included Amplified Elephants and Super Luminem.

With the lockdown of 2020, the Melbourne Fringe ran in a completely online format that year. This gave me a good opportunity to perform I Am Sharing in a live stream format which removed any physical performer or audience presence. I performed over three nights, on the 19th, 20th and 21st of November.

I hope to post some videos from the latter performances at some stage, once I get around to editing them!