Aleksandra Stojaković Olenjuk on the Performance:
In the context of the growing influence of social media on the economy, the boundary between work and the intimate sphere is becoming increasingly difficult to discern. This raises the question: What exactly are we trading? Which aspects of life gain market value?
Drawing from long-standing artistic practice and the work Contemporary Stage Directing by Patrice Pavis, we ask: if our creative fields are conditioned by personal experiences, imagination, heritage, emotional landscapes, and identity, do they become the currency by which we validate our market—i.e., network—value? The procedures we employ and the phenomenology we rely on examine conventions of perception, strategy, and the aesthetic experience of the other—the hidden, the unfinished, the imperfect, the insufficient, and the otherwise invisible.
We do not control the unambiguousness of the content we present; instead, we deconstruct the form of theatrical performance by showing doing, revealing how something operates. Thus, our study's subject points to what (how is the performative material created?) or who (why this particular performer?) is being presented to us. The stage and the actor’s body are always spaces of public exposure. We confront the real and constructed physicality of actors, who, through their artistic choices, either express or neutralize what we see.
With this performance, we aim to expose the mechanisms of content manipulation in both performative and public spaces—content presented to us as intimate but deceives the targeted audience with unattainable ideals of living. This deception leads to a significant rise in mental health issues and feelings of inadequacy or failure among social media users and audiences alike. The unique artistic (acting) position of the creators involved in this project highlights the daily negotiation of this very phenomenology, which we seek to problematize through this artistic process.
By focusing on these mechanisms, we aim to make the boundary between skills and acquired knowledge visible—and, in the future, accessible to those who internalize their lack of these skills as a personal failure. This is something we cannot accept, either personally or artistically.
The performance explores the phenomenology of soft skills, self-marketing, self-branding, self-performance, and life skills.
The production is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, the City of Rijeka, and the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County.