Fringe Debate: Break the Internet

A potato flew around my room before you came, Pepe the Frog NFT, black TikTok creators on strike, Barbz calling out Lana stans, everything happens so much. Did Kim Kardashian break the internet or has the internet already broken us?
The internet once promised to improve our lives: cultural democracy, limitless information and instant global connectivity. Now we’re downloading movies in seconds but waiting longer for takeaway than it would take us to cook, begging the question: has this all gone too far?
If your screen time app tells you you’re looking at your phone more than you’re looking at your family, or you’ve woken up to Netflix asking if you’re still there, or you’ve set up a finsta to casually check on an ex – this event is for you. If you can’t relate – this event is also for you (and please teach us your ways).
Join an electrifying mix of interdisciplinary artists as they debate the power of the internet, and whether its hold on our lives is a force for good or evil. Hosted by Lou Wall.
The event will open with a screening of Archie Chew and Alicia Easaw-Mamutil’s satirical short film, Call Me Puritan.
Presented in partnership with Melbourne Fringe
Featuring

Marcus is an artist living in Naarm, originally from Lutruwita. He makes experimental contemporary performance that combines the body, text, sound design and meme-adjacent media. His work uses the relationship between audience and performer as a site for bizarre new encounters, often involving schis... Read more

Margot Tanjutco is a writer, director, and actor. They directed And She Would Stand Like This with Antipodes Theatre Company for Midsumma 2022 and are currently part of Theatre Works’ two-year writing program, She Writes Collective. Their experimental digital work psyche404error won Best Work In F... Read more

Aurelia St Clair is a German-Cameroonian comedian, writer, podcaster and dog mother who now calls Melbourne home. They were a part of the Comedy Up Late series, recorded in 2021 for Audible and are one of six playwrights chosen for Malthouse Theatre’s Besen Writers group in 2021. Aurelia has p... Read more

Cher Tan is an essayist and critic in Naarm/Melbourne, via Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide and Singapore. Her work has appeared in the Sydney Review of Books, Overland, The Lifted Brow, Kill Your Darlings, Runway Journal and elsewhere. She is an editor at LIMINAL magazine and the reviews editor at Meanjin. ... Read more

Miss Cairo has been an advocate in the performing arts industry for her queer, trans fam and communities of colour and is The Director of The People of Cabaret. She has a strong focus on mental health and well-being, and is committed to ensuring that artists find their self worth and value in the wo... Read more

Sinéad Stubbins is a Melbourne-based writer, editor and cultural critic, and the author of In My Defence, I Have No Defence. She made her name writing TV recaps for Junkee on shows such as The Bachelor and Game of Thrones, and she’s also on the writing team for The Weekly with Charlie Pic... Read more

Lou Wall is a multi-award winning comedian, writer, and composer. Since 2017, she has toured nationally with her black comedy cabaret A Dingo Ate My Baby (Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2017), It’s Not Me, It’s Lou (Melbourne Cabaret Festival’s Emerging Cabaret Arti... Read more

Archie is a young director based in Australia. He makes stylised absurd comedies with heart. Archie works in close collaboration with his partner and producer Alicia Easaw-Mamutil and the pair strive to make ambitious, stylised, irreverent films. Archie’s most recent short film The End, The Beginn... Read more

Alicia has been producing absurd comedies for close to a decade. She works in film but is deeply influenced by theatre. She creates warm but fiercely passionate work environments. She picks her crew carefully and prefers to work with friends. In recent years Alicia has chosen to work exclusively wi... Read more
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