Q: How did you come up with the idea for One Million Views? What made you pick these specific Australian YouTube celebrities?
A: Tiyan and I came up with the idea for One Million Views in late 2014. We met as finalists in The Macquarie Digital Portraiture Award (which Tiyan won) at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. Upon meeting, I kind of flippantly suggested that we should do a project together and then a few beers and a few flights to Sydney later, we had the beginnings of what would eventually became One Million Views.
While our artistic styles as video artists are about as disparate as they come, we found common ground in our shared obsession with YouTube in all its vast strangeness. YouTube is an odd beast – there is a place for literally everything and everyone – and we wanted to sum up a broad cross-section of that within this project. We’ve got political ranters, teen idols, ASMR-tists, wildlife experts and budding chefs. We also wanted to explore how these people represent Australian Identity through their existence as online ambassadors.
Q: Without giving too much away before the exhibition, what interesting offline traits did you find in your subjects?
A: I think going in to this project, we thought that we would answer some big philosophical questions about authenticity – the authentic self being offline in real life, and the inauthentic self being this tailored version of the self developed for an online viewership.
What has been interesting, going into these people’s houses and being party to their lived experience, is finding out just how little that divide actually means to them as individuals. Both their on and offline personas are so intrinsically linked, that, while they are different, they represent two parts of a cohesive whole. In some cases, online life is a more authentic or, at least, much more comfortable place to be. Being a YouTuber is so much a part of their identity, that their entire world is influenced by that fact.
Q: You and Tiyan are described as having contrasting styles – you’re more about higher stimulation and the public output of these people, where as Tiyan focuses more on subtlety and their private lives. How have these opposing outlooks manifested themselves in your work?
A: The total contrast between the two styles is very much representative of the overarching message of the project: one half conflicting with and simultaneously complementing the other. For each YouTuber, we have made one diptych portrait – two parts which form one complete image of our subject. I think the most interesting part of working together has been acknowledging the similarities and the differences in our approaches to art making. My practice is very removed from the real world and relies exclusively on post production. I spend hours scouring the Internet for the perfect piece to fit into my elaborate puzzle. It’s almost psychotic.
Tiyan’s practice is much more hands on. The work is in the organisation – having to coordinate people, pick up gear, and set up lighting. Then it’s just a matter of finding the right take, polishing it up, looping it perfectly and making it look effortlessly intimate – easy! It’s an odd thing to be a video artist that doesn’t know how to use a camera. Tiyan has certainly taught me quite a bit about how stuff works. Overall, One Million Views has been a hugely rewarding project. Getting this thing off the ground took a whole lot of time, work, and people-moving. We’ve learnt so much and we’re so excited to see it all come together.
