Press Corpse: Post-Terrestrial Television

Press Corpse: Post-Terrestrial Television 

World:

Last summer may have been the last influencer summer this society will live to witness. At least, not with the same gravity and hypnotising magnitude as before. Over the past year, consumer activity on social media has decreased significantly, following a global phenomenon of user fatigue, mistrust, and alienation.  The pocket-sized social planet we held so close to us has betrayed us so far, we are too tired to comply. 

In 2025, only 76% of brands dedicated advertising funds to online creators — a 10% decrease since 2024; just 12% planned to allocate more than half their budgets to influencer marketing. Around 60% of users are expected to actively scroll past "Paid Partnership" posts, and the influencer engagement rates on TikTok have dropped 35% in one year (peak was during Covid lockdown in 2020, with 313.5 million downloads in only three months). 

Creators are scared, consumers are tired, and corporations, disappointed. It seems that, at some point, a new social class was formed which, for the first time, anyone could access. (If you really put the work in, of course). Though, slowly, power dynamics transpired and, even in this digital periphery, success only managed to fulfil its promise to a distinct privileged few. Whom, by now, have become too rich and detached to feel in any way relatable.

It's hard to believe the facts. Information flows from all possible directions. Thankfully, listening is one of the more weakened qualities of today's society. In a Vogue article published on August 3, 2026, the word "surviving" is used side by side with "brand ambassador", "micro-celebrity", and "internet-personality". Most likely, one of the only times these languages will meet in mainstream press. The platforms are starving; sensationalism is in crisis. And we are so f****** bored! Nobody knows what to do. Or, perhaps, you do.

Blog:

The Time is Now.

NOW, now. (I am writing this as we speak).

Wed. 7 October, 14:35pm. 

The Television’s on. The biased filter [that is the anatomy of my eye] limits my vision to the rectangular carcass of this program. A man is holding up a large circular painting of a blue iris. He turns to the girl wearing the Bershka flower pants and asks: What does this piece convey to you? Her pause to think has ostensibly been edited out of the clip. The answer is nearly immediate. Every word sounds more stupid than the last. I'm no longer paying attention. A muttering of generic male voices disperses along the back of my mind as I produce the thoughts I believe will soon turn into writing.

This week, I've spent entirely in bed—with the exception of a couple of trips on foot to the supermarket, just to aid my isolation—sick from a recurring throat condition. The circumstance isn't new at all. I've lived like this for nearly two years; funnily enough, my system's weakness has become my most predictable factor.

By now, I sleep the days away and take little-to-no pills. My cabinet's filled with herbal cures, mostly ginger, thyme, and lemon, and jars with liquid kitchen bouillon. At night, I wear a mask over my eyes and hope to rest for at least ten hours (the more, the merrier). 

During the day, I lie in bed and telematically consume content. That is, books when I have the energy to read, and movies when my body feels too tense to relax. And then, writing (when I'm too sick to do accomplish either of them). Total rest becomes harder at daytime. Something to do with light or, perhaps, with missed workday-related stress. 

On Monday, I binge-watched a tv series about angry rich people and sad poor people. A vegan Gourmet housewife murdered her worst critic with a bronze sculpture from the coffee table of his villa in the hills. Actually, he stays alive and then dies because he couldn't take his heart medicine on time. On the opposite side of town, a middle-aged, single woman's just been fired from the call help center and downed a whole bottle of whiskey, trying to find an alternative way to pay the rent. She runs up the stairs until reaching the roof of the building, leaving her demented mother behind. The sun sets in their and in my city. What do these images have to tell me?

On Tuesday, I read a third of the book that had been sitting in my bag for the last weeks. I wouldn't have managed to pick it up otherwise; desperation out of illness is a real productivity catalyst sometimes. The book has given me some perspective. Maybe not all writing that is linear has the power to reach people. Which allows for freedom in the opposite scenario. Which gives me a sense of my own little freedom.

Today is Wednesday, and I’ve spent the entire day scrolling down these New Yorker articles. The first, about the lingerie and how it's linked to conservatism. Confederate flag bikinis sold at the "Republican Coachella", the way those magazines want women to think about sex—is beauty the female equivalent of finance? The second article was about Virginia Woolf’s frustration with the lack of disease-related writing in her time. I picked up on some references for my thesis. It’s always a good time to make sickness useful for me, somehow. This contradiction, I'm never ready to accept.

I have three more days to come to peace with my performance this weekend. Meaning, to draft a solid script, gather all my necessary research, and plan out the technical details to avoid any last-minute stress. Though, so far, everything I’ve managed to do from home has been: falling into a looping cycle of stupid YouTube street interviews on art, and then, of art people filming stupid interviews for YouTube. Texting my boyfriend to see if he could book us a camera for Saturday. Texting my friend who lives next door if she happens to have a pair of high-heeled boots to wear on show day. And, I guess, writing this text out of frustration, thinking the lack of research and solidity of my work could be compensated with the link to a blog, which could possibly better contextualise my point and give it some credibility through writing. (Typical of me, insecure about my image, thus attempting to make it up with words). 

Work:

The idea parts from a refusal to define object and subject in the practice of art performance, and to address the interminable discourse occupying our art spaces in this unbelievable cultural, economic, and hyper-social sphere. The work is also a play on the language and critical responsibility that concerns these exhibition sites, both socially—the talk among ourselves, as makers—and within the spirit of the works. A conversation that remains semi-private and will forever define the way we perceive ourselves (as future) and how we are seen by the rest of the world. 

As a performer, these questions have always felt essential, and continue to gain relevance as the world approaches a strange horizon in communications: the realm of media, popular culture, and the iconography of fame. Every day, videos of unrecognisable faces populate our digital feeds with words and images that barely hold weight or meaning over our small lives. We are constantly fed with an unfiltered stream of information—though very deliberately targeted—which shapes our thinking on both conscious and unconscious plains. Without critical weapons of our own, we stand on combat ground in an isolated hope that time will eventually save us.

As viewers, as visitors, and as audiences of the performance that is modern-day life, we tend to underestimate our ability to be decisive and produce original thoughts, and know how to react correspondingly to the propositions and questions that are presented to us on the regular. In most cases, these thoughts move through us in a casual manner. We experience heavy and light events in an equally passive, impersonal way. That is, until we are forced to pick sides in our own real life.

It's difficult to orient oneself in the greater latitude of things and remember that these faces, which we can recognise as public (celebrities, theorists and critics, respected and disrespected artists, c-list actors, and facilitators of media-data flow, eg. The Interviewers) are, most of the time, benefiting from such exposed conditions. The current system of capital is built upon the —unequal— distribution of our attention, a resource extracted from us on a constant basis, beyond possible consent. The machine continues to proliferate the more we care about others’ lives and faces and, inversely, the more able ‘creators’ are to formulate a real stance of their own. To present oneself singularly and communicate that in an articulate and composed way. Let's pose: the same can be said for makers. 

Execution:

By means of minimal props, a flexible stage, and anonymous performative conditions, I'd like to take the chance to raise questions about the urgent politics of the art world. Let's start a conversation that makes all of us, performers and viewers, feel seen—in all the wrong ways. Generate confusion, discomfort, a faux sense of fame. Facilitate the spread of misinformation. Ignite gossip and revive drama from its deep, buried grounds. I want to involve the public in all the stages of the show: from its formation to its death. The writing of its content will remain as a record in this blog, but the hard-boiled truth of what really happened will only remain evident in the footage. 

This project is also my way of distributing the creative responsibility of the production of a work, along with its possible risks, faults, and social implications. Test out and explore, once again, the conception of art as a profession, a scene, and a play field for social interaction. And make a statement on the ever-changing expectations of the art medium and the use of performance in public art contexts. For the sake of transparency (and of your inclusion in the process), here are stated the technical details of the work, as settled previously to the date of execution:

Press Corpse consists of a performative work set to exist only once in the exhibition space in Papaverhoek 27, Amsterdam, on the night of the 10th of October of 2026. The performance will start around 18:00 and continue throughout the exhibition until 21:00, with visitors present and in an ambulatory manner. For this, no stage or showtime is required; only an audience and actors. 

    During the performance, the actors will walk around the space, interviewing visitors about their experience of the show, as well as their personal opinions (ordinary, lifestyle-related) and political stances, popular preferences and cultural interests, work, their work, the art world, and any other questions that derive from these subjects. The duration of each interview will vary in accordance with the development and attitude of the viewer's responses. One of the actors will film these interviews with a large digital camcorder, whilst the interviewee will record sound using two small microphones. A small card with a QR code will be handed to the visitors post-interview.

    Questions will be taken from a pre-formed script that has been written on the basis of research on the interview as a form, its use in art history, media, and, similarly, politics, and its influence on today's digital information channels.

    [Interview: a public stage for propaganda (in all its senses, both magical and Machiavellian), spontaneity, and danger, similar to the one found in the art performance medium.] 

    Acting out these questions will also involve the imitation of the language and aptitudes often used in interview-like contexts, though adapted to the frame of the "social exhibition". A certain flexibility is invited from the side of the interviewer, so as to adapt their questions and comments to the diversity of answers. 

    The actor and support crew will be dressed in dark, neutral clothing. (Most likely, in the case of the interviewer, this will consist of a slick, tight bodysuit and a pair of high, smart shoes, as if imitating the style of contemporary influencers; she might well have the face and identity of any other, ie., the anonymous look of fame.) Subtle, genteel makeup. A slow, confident mannerism is essential in the delivery of both characters. Note: the exact profiles are yet to be decided in detail. No rights may be derived from the possible differences between description and scene. Human variability shall always be placed above the supposed "interest" of the work.

    Camera and sound equipment will be provided by the artist and transported on the same day of the exhibition. The only condition in terms of preparation would be the request to access some form of privacy prior to the exhibition, to get ready and change wardrobe before the start time.

    Consent: Visitors may agree to be interviewed and filmed through a verbal exchange and are informed of their rights as subjects via the online "contract/context" card given at the end. Like a business card, which is often exchanged for the purpose of networking, this item serves as a symbolic closing to the interaction between audience and performer.

    The text that can be accessed online via the card informs participants that they have the remaining time of the exhibition to appeal to their right of image. They are free to request that the content, video, and audio footage of their interview not be used or distributed following its creation. This margin of consensus is an important part of the artwork’s conceptual construction: an experiment on the use of documentation as a secondary art form, equally possible to be manipulated and modified for the creative benefit or self-defamation of the artist.

    In regard to the ethics of filming, think of me as your local church's sponsor. I film an ad on the side of an alley with the help of two young male entrepreneurs. You are in it on your way to the supermarket. Remember the guy who once stopped you in the center of your city to ask which song is playing in your headphones? It's me, the same Google Earth camera driving by your house every year for the rest of your life. Come on, it's of no surprise. Things have always been done this way.