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Thesis Info
- LABS ID
- 00854
- Thesis Title
- shrimpychip YouTube
- Author
- B. Wijshijer
- E-mail
- contact AT bwijshijer.com
- 2nd Author
- 3rd Author
- Degree
- MFA
- Year
- 2020
- Number of Pages
- 42
- University
- University of Waterloo
- Thesis Supervisor
- Jessica Thompson
- Supervisor e-mail
- jessica.thompson AT uwaterloo.ca
- Other Supervisor(s)
- Bojana Videkanic
- Language(s) of Thesis
- English
- Department / Discipline
- Fine Arts
- Copyright Ownership
- B. Wijshijer
- Languages Familiar to Author
- English
- URL where full thesis can be found
- uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/15903
- Keywords
- neurocapitalism, YouTube, social media, digital intimacy, performance, video, accelerationism, camp, new media, parasocial, visual art
- Abstract: 200-500 words
- shrimpychip YouTube is a series of YouTube videos that explore the ways in which digital intimacy and capitalism intersect. The performances, designed for YouTube, strategically exploit emotional responses to the body, the home, and notions of privacy in order to highlight the counterintuitive relationships embodied in digital capitalism. The structural aesthetics of social platforms are deliberately employed in my videos to stress the strangeness of these new economic, cultural, social and personal relationships. In documenting myself using the algorithmic structures embedded in these systems, the work functions as a digital archive of actions and perceptions, providing a firsthand account of the body and thoughts as they are mediated by technology. By tirelessly following trends to the point of ridiculousness, the online persona of shrimpychip empathizes with the internet culture while simultaneously highlighting our vulnerability within these systems.