This project started in February 2017 when I was on the train to the airport while in London for an audition for the National Youth Theatre (five and a half years, I GOT IN, yay!!!!!). I read about the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, and I thought: “I’m gonna write a play!” And submit by the deadline of that summer. I didn’t. But I did writ down ideas, scenarios, characters, while being very unhappy, emotionally overwhelmed, anxious, paranoid and feeling caged at St George’s International School (fuck you guys). That’s where Kelsey was born. Originally a rapping boxer, she became a figure of resistance in a dystopian world I was creating, who can’t deal with the rising fame, success, audience, pressure & responsibility she is getting, constantly plagued by her doubts. …..
This is 5 years worth of material. And it’s only the beginning. The task now is to carefully pick which elements I can turn into my Inter Disc Project this semester with the time and resources I have.
I looked at artists, mental health, dystopian worlds, and the pressure of fame and being in the public eye.
Just realised calling it “Kelsey!” is like saying it’s a musical like “Oliver!” you can take the piss somewhat.
It’s the dystopian landscape I’m in, David Bowie’s sexy glossy tales of it in Diamond Dogs & Outside really bewitched me. I have this image in my head, of a rockstar/a musician/a solo artist, at a concert, a normal image, and they’re leading the crowd. I felt it was so original then, the anxiety they feel, how they’re desperate for the love from their fans. An artist who is unhappy in this world, and wants to change it. This is a dystopian world, though I can read articles about how we’ve seen all the dystopian shit before, the privileged and less privileged areas.
The manager in charge, controlling Bowie & Elvis. What if psychologically and/or through drugs or artificial intelligence, you create your own manager, your own worst demon. Don’t want it to just be a rich greedy guy in glasses stereotype though.
https://ultimateclassicrock.com/david-bowie-earl-slick-drugs/
So you create your own manager, but then you destroy them when they’re not good enough
So I now wanna create a moodboard, multiple short insights and texts around the same topic, that make up a story, or maybe don’t. But here they are, it’s what’s in my mind about Kelsey. But it’s definitely not the finished product, like that Scenography concept. But I know it’s not, it’s also experimenting with performers, filmmakers, musicians and live event techies, if I can fucking get them.
VIDEOCLIPS (think i started it on fcpx)
Downfalls high, announcement of grad who severed his ear while his music soared to the charts
MY DYSTOPIAN WORLD, ORIGINALLY
Had the stereotypical Privilege vs Less Privileged Divide – based it on my hate for St Georges, my old school (sorry teachers, but you’re part of a system that is wrong)
Liked the idea of not knowing who’s really in charge
What happened? I had an idea for some sort of right wing coup, but not sure I’d like it now
Can be left ambiguous, as maybe this is all thought up by Effy
Ah, Effy, originally a female transgender prostitute, or a cisgender male who does drag trying to culturally appropriate and misrepresent a transgender character, that sounds about right. I’ve found out so much more since then. Back then it was so exciting and new to me, a man just being a woman by 1putting on stereotypical clothes, hair and make-up, I tried around there too
But now, it’s a gender and sexuality playhouse, they use their clients to experiment with fantasies and gender images. To find out about themselves? Officially it’s a service for the client, but deep down it’s helping them
Like the drag tour thing, so emotionally distant dad puts on drag, socially shy female fresher is a drag king. I was thinking horrible male businessman. What if someone was tory and horrible, and they tried drag. They’d done drag socials, just done it for a laugh. But this time they wear it together, two cisgender men, at this stage (can I say that, oh I’m ignorant) and trying on female accessories. This guy is horribly misogynistic, does it change him for the better? Then you could also
Maybe it can’t work as a narrative, at least not yet. Maybe it should be more performative, a movement piece (oh boi here we go again), movement and experimental film.
Yeah, let’s start with the two types and some story structure, dialogue less theatre and film segments. Telling a basic story.
MY IDEA OF FAME:
Going on tour, have access to arts, everyone is collaborating from Kate Bush to Little Simz to Adam Levine to Rihanna to Wiz Kalifa to Akala to Forced Entertainment to Ken Loach.
KELSEY
EFFY
Can be an art troupe, a band, a group of outcasts, Kelsey is the frontwoman, have Effy who creates events, drug experiences, virtual realities, Scenography, Effy used it with their clients. They have their story with the Young Man, who might be a different gender, don’t know. The might be an artist too.
There’s the filmmaker, who might be like the news filmmaker who wants to get all experimental, create modern film and link it?
Creator of costumes.
This could be the most stereotypical counter culture group ever, very 60s? But see what I can make the future. The filmmaker.
Digital clothing
Effy actually makes digital and 3D and imaginary experiences, would they actually go to proper design? Maybe they don’t fit in this world.
Have Museless exist next to Kelsey, reference these two dystopian worlds. Maybe they do exist somewhere else, not that the whole world is English speaking, have them next to each other, this idea came while listening to street spirit by radiohead
THE PROPAGANDA
Show snippets of this world, create relatable dictators, base on this video:
https://youtu.be/PPLIw64rLJc
A Royal family that has house parties and goes on nights out
It’s just over 5 years later I’m more aware of the oppressive society that I’m in.
(Confused what this means)
THE INTERVIEW
many charming and charismatic interviews
But 2001 reflection on kid a: it’s nobody’s business, next question Had this image of the people and the audience tearing the interviewer apart, similar theme and image to Collanorize Imagery, the national anthem song is playing while Kelsey looks on, last thing we see is interviewer being descended on by fans, and then we hear the screams, that’s the horror I like, the horror of what an artists Fans could do, the power they have.
COLLANORIZE:
Innocent artists that wanna collaborate with Kelsey
They get collanorized
Attacked and skinned and have all their art ability stolen by this butcher
LIGHTING BIG THING
YUNGBLUD‘S MOUTH
The dictatorship, asking the crowd questions
(It’s got a bit of that For Shame Waiting for Godot Monologue)
Have that Mouth, and it’s the artist trying to get love and attention from the crowd, they keep trying
Inversion of non conformist oath by gorillaz
You need a structure, something which is a mixture of a script, a treatment and a storyboard
https://youtu.be/OfBIRNMiQig
THE UNDERGROUND
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jan/31/photographer-mick-rock-social-media-means-we-wont-see-another-lou-reed
NON-BINARY, THEY/THEM
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-49754930
OPPRESSIONS & DICTATORSHIPS IN THE WORLD
(Listening to the slow middle of Paranoid Android, I’m imagining a bit in the film where I show the influence and also highlight injustices in the world, like the What A Wonderful World Collage in Bowling for Columbine, with facts, how many people are being oppressed in what way?)
Politicians being shot in Mexico, Miguel
Uganda, Lydia and Ugandan people she knows
Belarus, Belarus Free Theatre
Poland, Women’s Rights, LGBTQIA+ Rights
Hungary
Russia, Chechyna, talk to the London guy ik LJMU Creative Writing, the guy he knew
Maybe Arab countries, the Refugees we know
Brazil, Pettrus
Wales, in the past and now – Floodings and Languages being banned, Welsh Not Sign, Ask Lucy
Greece, Aris. Ask his theory on China. Dazo had something to say in connection with Nigeria and maybe even wider Africa? Worth asking again, you might be able to collect in International Documentary
FOR WINTER SHOW
ONLINE CONTEXT
IN THE SPACE
Could break the fourth wall, be a DJ, a party host, slightly effeminate, drunk, druggy, saying: “Alright Kelsey, we know you really get off on this dystopian, futurist, nihilist shit. But see the world through a lens. I mean, who thought you were a fully-rounded character when conceiving you?” Then Kelsey: “Well. Why DO YOU keep wanking yourself off on dystopia, hm?” “That is a good question, it’s a niiice viiiibe. If you know what I mean. Anyway, time for some funky stuff. Community. And all that.”
Then some DJ sections, maybe with someone like Dazo as well.
Have one of the fans, the big fan, slightly drunk, so exhausted of partying, outside, talking. Immersive theatre in School of Art again.
INTO THE WORLD
I could do this for my Comic Book Module. Create the world of Kelsey, create the landscapes, the cities, the club spaces, the annual freaking out to music a la hate week, the news and showing of violence, the real world on the billboards. The character of Kelsey?
Or should I do a prequel series set in this world? I think that would help to flesh it out. I could do it on Effy.
ANXIETY AUDIO PIECE
All the anxious thoughts
Get people to share their anxieties about art.
And then maybe a second lot of anxieties about themselves.
And disfigure them. They need to be whispers. Either have them performed as whispers, people afraid of the whispers and rumours of other people.
YOU COULD HAVE HER STANDING THERE, REACTING EMOTIONALLY, MAYBE IT WOULD BE MORE EFFECTIVE AS SOMETHING REPEATING AND REPEATING
HOW SHE BECOMES A TYRANT
The Wall – Someone becomes a tyrant because of their own anxiety
“One of the curses of being a tyrant is that you’re never secure in a position of power”
INSIDE THE BOX
This idea for a moment in the story is like a mood-piece, a piece of film, a film that could go on forever, repeating and durational like (oh, and I think the Creative Arts Studio will be perfect for that), close-up, of like being in the midst of it.
So this is a mood-piece, I’m unsure about which medium to tell Kelsey’s stories. An easier way would be to give quick windows in it, which you can do with tracks on an album, and/or with an accompanying live show with choreography/theatre, and/or have music videos/films accompanying these tracks, or short films like moodpieces completely on their own (The whole concept of a mood-piece that the 3rd year Film Production students have to in Semester 1, find out more about that, so fascinating, so interesting to actually have the mood-pieces maybe be the end product instead of pre-empting the final product. Though I could intend it to be the first draft from which I’ll build on from after my course, if I get to have more resources and work with more creatives. Or maybe these moodpieces, these hints, these scratchings on the surface will be enough, no need to look any further, might spoil the mystery, the character, the feel, the imagination, the world and the dystopia. We’ll see
It’s like being in a toilet and smoking a spliff, but it’s music.WOLF ALICE SAFE FROM HEARTBREAK TOILET VIDEO Kelsey, while researching, stays for 12 hours or more continuously, listening to the music, the holy scrolls, the information, the art that’s been kept away from us. It’s a one-take, it’s jump takes maybe. Got this idea when listening to the songs on the DAMN. album. Consuming song after song, it is like a drug. And enjoying it, it’s like Bowie listening to soul music which was used for videos about his song Right, moving his head to the beat and music, and then clapping at the end, and a ciggie in his mouth. Another image: Gary smoking in Misfits S01E01 just before he gets killed, enjoying a spliff, in the moment.
HOW ABOUT YOU ACTUALLY MAKE THE INSTRUMENTS AS WELL?
Chat with Rio
Post in Instrument Society if anyone is interested.
Chas Smith: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/chas-smith/108905730
Interview with
SO INSIDE THE BOX:
This frontal perspective of being overwhelmed. Let this be my experimentation with cinematography, different lights (am thinking of oliver and the red lights in sun upon a train carriage?).
Its her just being overwhelmed by it all. Have the band play and they react to her, and she reacts to them – here comes the mixture of film and performance. It could be a recurring thing
THE DISCOVERY OF DIFFERENT PARTS – THE CREATION OF INSTRUMENTS
THE COKE CAN, SOUND IT MAKES,
MOONAGE DAYDREAM – 3rd song (am I allowed to do it rights wise, still not more than 3 songs from an artist or an album?). The birth of Ziggy and the birth of Kelsey are linked, she is born, she finds this music.
THE PRODUCER
Image film inside a recording studio, a producer figure (also female – but I also wanna play him/her/them, metaphor for me creating and moulding this character), how a producer and a musician interact. In this dystopian world they’re looking to create a musical figure, and this piece looks at how celebrities and musical figures are created.
I thought of this when reading the Genius entry on Vossi Bop, and the London producer is mentioned, in those opening notes, thinking of the video set in London, so I’m thinking of the dog eat dog world of London, all these musicians eying to make art. What must it feel like to try and work and live in London.
LONDON. Being an artist in London (Read that later)
PLAYING THE CHARACTERS FOR 3RD YEAR WINTER SHOW OR TAKEOVER:
It would be me playing Effy, and someone else playing Kelsey, a singer would be good (but is it a band). To really create characters in this world, through costume, through99 make-up, through photography (1.Outside), like Bowie did. You have the photography and songs. A real distortion of various mediums, this world. Really use this chance to create the story in every medium. Imagine this as an album with various windows onto a world, and accompanied by photographs and paintings. Stage it as a musical, but it might not actually be like a musical, the songs might not feature in it. More like a general piece of theatre
Try writing her story in prose as well. Try creating some film elements strongly linked to photographs and paintings, could be music videos, but don’t have to be. You could add your scenographic piece of the club where. I think the 3 hour and the 5 day parts format of the Takeover will work nicely with this.
THE……????
Kelsey has memories of a drunk homeless person singing offkey, the old tunes. A whole album full of offkey singings, vocally they don’t sound good, but they still have heart and soul in them. And so much pain and hurt.
Kelsey’s not gone:
https://www.aberystwythartscentre.co.uk/cinema/depeche-mode-spirits-forest
The character and the whole essence of Kelsey was always in the lyrics, not the whole story, but definitely in these lyrics:
Ziggy played guitar,
jamming good with Wierd and Gilly,
And The Spiders from Mars.
He played it left hand,
but made it too far,
Became the special man,
Then we were Ziggy’s Band.
Ziggy really sang,
screwed-up eyes and screwed-down hairdo
Like some cat from Japan,
he could lick ’em by smiling
He could leave ’em to hang
He came on so loaded man,
well-hung and snow white tan.
So where were the spiders
while the fly tried to break our balls?
Just the beer light to guide us.
So we bitched about his fans
and should we crush his sweet hands?
Ziggy played for time,
jiving us that we were Voodoo
The kids were just crass,
He was the naz
With God given ass
He took it all too far
But, boy, could he play guitar.
Making love with his ego,
Ziggy sucked up into his mind
Like a leper messiah
When the kids had killed the man
I had to break up the band
Ziggy played guitar
TRY OUT SOME STUFF
Have like secret gigs and competitions and social media events to recreate that world of Kelsey, have people, actors best, be like doing roleplay, to really flesh out this world.
Having gigs as artforms.
NFTS:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3vgjy/theres-an-nft-band-with-no-music-now-sorry
Kelsey becomes NFTs, animations, like Gorillaz
SCENES
THROWING UP
Kelsey Memo 1
(listening to beginning of Song Machine Live version of Last Living Souls
(could start with that, if it’s non linear).
Maybe it’s best to use Creative Arts to create a moodboard, and a sort of non-linear collection of the characters stories into a moodboard as an experimental film, after doing a break down of the story and the World. At the end you might feel it’s fine as that non linear. It can be both performance and film, as I feel I can’t quite create the world with just Aberystwyth, but I can look at cities.
Sound of throwing up, gagging, is gonna be essential! Learn from advanced sound
IRON LUNG
Make a performance art piece, imagine being tied to just one song, that they write it all over your body. An actual iron long as life support machine, insensitive to those kind of people? But the lung is evil. A video of people writing all over it, we need something to cover. Though it kind of feels uncomfortable, gotta be careful, might look too much like assault, which can be effective but wanna be careful, wellbeing of actors.
The video could have a version where it’s a music video to it, but main one has different sound.
But have a live performance where Kelsey sings. Thus is the thing we need some songs that represent the World, just 3 or 4, and then work on the Yystwyth Album.
FRAGMENTS OF A STAR:
Is it lazy to appropriate other words? Here it’s what other musicians have written, specifically about being an artist, the anxieties of that, of being famous. Verbatim theatre, bricolage, it#s the opening of lucida, i did it in ensemble, in math the do. Here it goes, it’s the residue kelsey feeds on. It’s what happens in we will rock you, even though my idea was before then, this maybe is an influence. But here are some fragments:
“Businessmen drink my blood, like the kids in art school said they would” – Ready To Start by Arcade Fire
“And I keep picking petals. I’m afraid you don’t love me anymore. Cause a kid on the gram in a Black Dahlia Tank says it ain’t heavy metal. And that’s alright…..I tried to do a headcount, but I cut off all the crusts.”
- heavy metal by bring me the horizon
“I could make a transformation as a rock ‘n roll star…” – Star by David Bowie
THE FANS/THE AUDIENCE
SOME FANS DON’T LIKE BEING IN A CROWD OF OTHER FANS, THEY PREFER IT AS A SOLO EXPERIENCE https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/10/how-depeche-mode-almost-became-my-own-personal-jesus
The tour bus in 101 doc
The Fan in Suede’s Love & Poison, cross-cut with Bernard Butler, it’s staged right?
Touching hands, animal nitrate in love & poison and ziggy stardust, the kiss before cracked actor, maybe uncomfortable actually. Tricky. Could be connection iof energy but alternatively taking advantage? Worshipping artist can’t really see through? Don’t really wanna go deep into an abuse story but hint at these issues.
CREATING A BRAND/STAGING A BAND, WHO CONTROLS THE ACT? IS IT BAND OR SOLO
Watch Yungblud running out onto stage in Big Weekend 2022:
So have niamh as performer, include my band
The band, whether backing or not, are getting retter, guitarist drummer and bassist – and then the singer runs out and says: “PEOPLE!!! ARE YOU READY????” – is about to sing
Then I come out the producer and re-direct them do it differently, maybe say “Disciples” or “My Bitches”
They Do It Again, say Disciples and Bitches, and get into beginning of song
Cut! Is that really what you’re gonna wear? And I need a bit more energy from the drummer. Intense. Not on drugs intense, there’s time for drugs but another time not here. Focus Intense, Life Purpose Intense, Way of Nature, Way of Living – INTENSE!
Drummer tries to act more intense. Singer is sent backstage to be dressed, is happening side by side to the drummer being intensified. The prod is not quite as happy, but they stick at it. They come back all dressed, the singer. How does the producer react?
Have you decided whether you’re a solo act with backers, or a whole unit? I mean, do you feel you will all give each other shared energy, cause it can’t just be a change of clothes for you Kelsey, especially if you’re a solo. Maybe start with the big message about mental health. And make it longer, you know, 20 minutes. I know you wanted it for this song, but that song needs to be at the end because of the effects. So let’s go!
The band starts playing, Kelsey is about to come out, already running, stopped even earlier.
Wait wait wait. Have silence first
(or have it just repeat again and again, and improvise with the band people)
These snippets work, that could be how it begins. Either with kelsey murdering the producer or it going on in a loop, could stage a performance with some scripted bits, but let it go as long as we can. Film and photograph it. Do this as the first one. Talk with the band, week 1.
PLAYING THE CROWD, IN THE CROWD, PART OF THE CROWD, LEADER OF THE CROWD, LEADER OF THE PACK
The physicality of live concerts, let’s start with just choreographing those (man it would be amazing if I could have at least 10 if not 15 people). Just like the movement piece on the atmosphere and sport of Rugby, create building blocks. And then apply it to this twisted world
Going past the crowd, high-fiving the hands, but then being pulled in
Stage diving, and being pulled by his fans
The stress
THE AUDIENCE IS THE ENSEMBLE
The live performance of No Cars Go in Mirror Noir, the orchestra isn’t there so band is mainly doing operatic climax, plus all the fans hopefully. Imagine how audience members feel after singing, they can all sing, the emotional feeling of actually using your voice. And that represents how if we stand together we can be unified and throw down all oppressive elements of society? Ehhhh I don’t like that, too simplistic, feel cynical about that. This could be a continuous deconstruction, me showing the doubt I have when writing stuff, “look at this ensemble & audience, not that diverse is it?” But am I actually helping? Maybe I should have more faith and love in myself. Just let the images speak for hope.
But is it all becoming too abstract and too performative???!! I’m worried it won’t tell the story I wanna tell, and then the mood, the feelings, the symbols, the message (whatever the fuck message is) won’t come across, it won’t be whatever I have imagined it to be for years now.
You see my documentary about club culture and spaces, it’s still connected to this. Oh man it would be awesome to somehow use the Arts Centre Space for that in May 2022 for the Takeover, even if I am taking a year out.
THE AUDIENCE, ALL FANS ARE TOXIC IN SOME WAY?
Sometimes it’s like the audience is in chains. There are sure other ways to represent it, but most binary way of showing it Fans who love them pull at chain in a BDSM pleasure way, but it can get too much still that sensation and pain. But the fans who hate pull to just emotionally hurt someone, and spit insults into their face.
This “fan” is so convinced in this article.
BURNING
I wanted to burn down Concert Square and all those other basic bitch clubs in Liverpool, I judge people especially student artists for not consuming real art, artistic music.
Images of burning, how to represent that?
MIRRORS
Was already thinking about it before I saw them, but the ABBA Avatars and the first episode of the Age of AI documentary.
But have loads of copies of yourself, that has been done but need to find it. But not in a music concept, well I mean in many artists they edit two vocals of themselves together, when they could get other singers? The Artist says they wanna collaborate, but really they want to harvest and feast on someone else Creativity, and consume and absorb it all got themselves, so they have control, no need to worry about unreliable collaborators! (that could be read out at a live performance)
INSPIRED, IMPRESSED, IN AWE, COLLABORATE, COLONISE, INFEST, EAT, CONSUME
Again when i saw jenson’s idea: ƒI FEEL LIKE AN ARTS COLONISER LIKE KELSEY WOULD FEEL. YOU TAKE AND STEAL, LIKE THE KRILLOTANE IN DOCTOR WHO’S SCHOOL REUNION. –
THE GANG/BACKING BAND
Earl Slick going to a darkened of Studio, and suddenly Tony Visconti saying you’re gonna hear the sounds. It’s like those quiet and silent abhör vernehmen, the tension, who are these people.
And then suddenly Bowie comes in and everything is OK.
DRUGS
https://news.yahoo.com/lorde-reveals-she-mdma-while-203548831.html
LETHARGY, LAZINESS AND FEAR
What if it’s just one album, a one hit wonder, or two or three albums. And when the producer or figures who pushed her to make the work go, she starts loads of projects but never finishes them.
She then collects a group of musicians, like the Gorillaz, and it works? That goes against someone so unorganised, but does it?
ONE VERSION:
It all works on the creative projects keep going and going
SECOND VERSION:
She can’t keep control of it, her assistants won’t help her
ANOTHER VERSION
She creates artificial intelligence, copies of herself. She replaces people with technology. Still wonder if it’s too much bringing in this technology stuff?
It’s not clear which of these versions is true.
CREATE THE RISE OF KELSEY, UP TO FAME
AND THEN HOW DOES SHE DEAL WITH THIS FAME, HOW DOES IT GO ON? GOOD OR BAD, MULTIPLE VERSIONS.
KARAOKE – YOU (ON THE OUTSIDE) & THE OUTSIDERS
While listening and singing Something In The Way by Nirvana, how would people have reacted to me singing that before The Batman.
But also Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush.
VERSE 1: Singing a song no one
CHORUS: Loving & Hating Being Outsider
VERSE 2: You Hear the song being everywhere
CHORUS: Getting more adamant about being the outsider
BRIDGE: Confused, alone, all these outsider
CHORUS: Who is the outsider? Who am I? I need something to validate myself
THE VIDEO:
Karaoke a bit like Wolf Alice’s How Can I Make it OK?.
ARTIST statement
Is there an artist statement labelled everywhere (don’t think so, have it extra there?) tell Kelsey to define herself, the artist.
KELSEY
QUESTIONS FOR DYSTOPIA
Who is oppressing, what do they stand for
Who is being oppressed
What parts of humanity/society (freedoms, thoughts, creativity, expressions) are being oppressed (2020 made me realise there are so many things I still don’t know about oppression due to my privileges. Kinda makes me feel like I shouldn’t write sth like this, i.e. I won’t be able to give it true authenticity.
How/What methods, is it brute force like in 1984 or hegemony or happy drugs like in Brave New World
DYSTOPIAN WORLDS
Hedonism and Consumption, Don’t Bite The Sun
DO YOU EVER FEEL COMFORTABLE AS AN ARTIST?
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/jul/05/beatriz-stix-brunell-royal-ballet
THE WORLD
Keep em uneducated
Out of 12-15 people, only 1 can read, that’s an agent by the government
The alternative is to read the web, where information keeps cropping up, headlines after headlines, makes you mad (censorship through too much information like in China, read that fucking Guardian article)
Those who ask too much could be punished like that?
About theatre and technology:
John Lahr:
The result is a palpable psychic mutation: a passive, credulous, restless mass, at once overexcited and underinformed,” she reads. “At its best, theatre is an antidote to the whiff of barbarity in the millennial air
And then you force everyone to listen to the translator (read history of press by Curran and Seaton)
And the arts are kept very simple, the charts, panem et circenses.
Horror Films, Blockbusters, you have superstars like James Dean, or do you, is that too much like Kelsey that her stardom
And we have Freak Out Weeks, everyone let’s out their energy, get rid of creativity
How do you censor it?
History:
We have no idea what came before, there are museums, there are history books
There are the old people who heard it from their parents, always doubt, we don’t know for sure fake news has
(While watching The River docu with its info points in Ottoman Empire deportation)
The stress of fame:
cousin of psoriasis, Dennis Potter had it and now does Penelope Skinner
When Mark Ronson heard Amy saying “They tried to make me go to rehab but I said no no no”
Should he have helped her? Instead of using it for art. an example of where art has been taken too far and was seen as more important than real life.
Kelsey could have someone like that, who realises the potential for art and pushes her further
Kelsey discovers all this music, all this art. It’s what starts her journey to a musician of the people. And she carries on listening to it, it’s what keeps her alive. But then one day it’s gone. And it adds to her downfall. How dependent she was on it. It influenced her so much. Yeah it’s gone from every database. She didn’t want to share it with the world, only her own creations, to make her feel that her creations are special. But when they stand on their own the insecurities, the albatross of each artist saying: “You’re shit”, grow out of proportion and half kill her, or fully kill her?
IS SHE A PLANT?
Oliver said he was convinced Yungblud was a plant, is Kelsey a plant? Would she even know? Its this discussion whether someone is mainstream, or controlled, you can never know for sure. Just like who we don’t know who is in charge in 1984, that could be the threatening government, or at least some of it, who are the oppressors, is it just negative vibes? Bit cheap..
But yeah, that’s the vibe. They start executing artists who are plants. All the artists that Kelsey creates, in a world where everyone has become bland and boring, people don’t move individually, they don’t sing. Do they paint? There’s just lights and the arts are the special ones. But yeah so many artists of different ranks, Kelsey becomes a bit like Lucida there. And the young ones, some of them become plants.
HOW SHE BECOMES A TYRANT
The Wall – Someone becomes a tyrant because of their own anxiety
“One of the curses of being a tyrant is that you’re never secure in a position of power”
DIGITAL RELEASE OF MUSIC:
https://www.insidehook.com/article/music/david-bowie-download-telling-lies-single
CIRCLES OF HISTORY
One way of telling this story is like a cycle of history, that theory of history that it’s repeating cycles instead of one thing leading to another like cause and effect. About an overdigitiised society, especially with music and the arts, and then Kelsey rediscovers musical instruments, and goes against technology? But technology comes back in mutlimedia shows. Or it mixes, Kelsey creates the mixture?
IT’LL KEEP GOING ROUND
ST GEORGES LINK
It’s where it was born. An older teacher staring into a computer. And the young kid wasting time on computer, wanting to be free. He is in great privilege, going to a great school. They’re very nice, and you got Mr Dungeon Keys the Headmaster nearby.
THE WORLD AND THE CHARACTER
Show the process. All the notes
Get illustration and comics people to draw the world. The news being actual violence shown 24/7
And then kelsey being in privilege but bullied, insecure and not feeling included cause that’s a ch
Interview with people, with women and non-binary characters, who is Kelsey?
AND EFFY
If there is time, have one interview documentary with the “This Is What Makes Us Girls” interspliced maybe. A blank room to talk about Effy, which originated as me fetishizing a transgender woman, let’s be honest. But now it could develop into gender fantasies.
KELSEY AND MENTAL HEALTH RECORDING
The Re-recordings that Taylor Swift is doing, what happens when the music is owned by that company. You recreate the album?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Swift_masters_controversy
Could every artist do that? What if it doesn’t work?
RESEARCH:
Into the digital world/simulacrum
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zRbRaJlvNPTbawSHRhKWLTrAo9LpnNTHreHyYBjhdKw/edit?usp=drivesdk (Singularity Is Near, upload our minds )
Simulacra & Simulations by Baudrillard
‘Our minds can be hijacked’: the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
Digital dystopia: the changing face of trust – podcast
DOUBLESPEAK:
If you could indoctrinate the public through music, make harmful things attractive
Kelsey is inspired by music, by art, by bands,
In the end other young people create their own Bands too. She doesn’t like that. She’s somewhat of a controlfreak.
The way I see it, two regions, the arty people who comment on the less privileged people,
That’s what art is. We don’t help society we sit back and comment on it. If it’s not like that theres always a danger of it becoming that.
Kelsey enters that world. Overwhelmed by all the art that is there. Like me in this drag gallery in London. So much art. So much theory, so much knowledge. I’m overdosing
I’m panicking I’m so high flying so high (that’s a song there, both in the world of the play but also the album)
Kelsey sees all mediums, all artforms, and what does she do? She’s overwhelmed by it all, and puts on her headphones, and makes sense of it through the music, it all comes through with the music, and then she creates her own. She has riff scribbless, just lashing and screaming out . And she makes sound, makes words, makes music, makes shows, makes lighting, makes films and art in the background . She makes performances, she engages with audiences.
She is the artist.
The music of Ming Wong is fucking terrifying, use that somehow (that moment when the woman is at the wall, the shadow)
U could have paintings, you could have all the audience in a room full of projections, seeing scryscrapers of the world (like in Diamond Dogs)
And have sound, the mainstream music
THE CULT
How are cult managed to gain so many blind followers (BTMH interview)
Netflix docu: Wild Wild Country..
Ben sung “R-E-SP-E-C-T”
Kelsey can’t stand the same tunes being repeated, regurgitated over again
When she becomes famous, her music is played over again, her feelings are spewed all over the world. It’s become a mainstream hit, can’t stand it. Can’t stand the attention, can’t stand how it becomes famous
And her fans also feel betrayed, “that these outsiders are in on their secret”
ANOTHER CHARACTER:
Someone like Anton Corbijn to come in and see the potential, a filmmaker to make videos.
People don’t know how to make films anymore, there are no more cameras
Hang on are Smartphones gone? Yeah I mean they can be used for political revolt.
Anyway the filmmaker character, who uses the chance to make films
I Am A Camera
So The Commuter, he watches and starts taking films.
He finds an old
And the parent who can’t stand his family shouting, you listen to music, to escape
You go to places
Kelsey’s my fucking escape, like her music/art is her escape.
THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Kelsey has worked with all these producers and filmmakers and technicians and musicians. But she gets stressed, and decides ro replace them all with AI. She kills them all?
And all their fans are dressing like her, have her connect with them at live gigs. A Parody of where Zoom calls could lead us.
(there could be a link between drug experiences and being uploaded to a collective Livestream, Effy?)
FAME
LORDE
The stress of having a debut album that’s hailed as such a monumental piece of music, even by David Bowie, any then having something said about the 3rd album. The stress, the pressure. What does it mean? Does it make the initial success feel like nothing?
Article:
And I realise myself now, I actually really like it somehow, especially the Stoned at the Nail Salon Track, but there’s this niggling thought in my head that I shouldn’t like it, that I’m not judging it properly. And maybe that’s enough to ruin Kelsey’s career completely. Her first album is an absolute success, but hang on, is it so popular that it’s mainstream?
But the second one isn’t quite as high, but still high. Or there was a second one even higher. But then eventually, the album after the one that wasn’t quite as high as the one before. And it’s such a disappointment, you’re irrelevant .
THE FANS:
The comments section underneath Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love Stream, imagine them being read out, the communication, a community, it’s a film, and the comments are read out, but as a voice over, people as performers there might work, like in the 2017 Thunis Facebook Group Play, but yeah might not.
And it becomes toxic and destroys Kelsey
THE STORY OF BRITNEY
EPISODE 1 – 2008
Journalist when asking if this is the right job for Britney, she seems so sad and depressed and bored.
EPISODE 2
CHILDHOOD & TEENAGE YEARS UP TO HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME (There’s that monologue in Chatroom by Enda Walsh)
The Entertainer’s Split – by Psychologist “….”
EPISODE 3
Virgin vs Vixen
Madonna Hore Complex
Britney Spears gets grilled by interviewers
Lady Gaga confronted someone
Aware or Naive?
First Pop Star of the Internet
5 year old girl said she wasn’t eating so she can have a belly, and wants to be “sexy”
When she was famous, she wanted to give our loads of hundred bills
Someone dug up dirt, a man slept in a barn claiming he was her husband, someone banged on the door and said “I wanna see Britney!” “You’re lying” “Open the door, or I’ll break it down!” – Mum brought a gun into Bathroom, and hiding her and Britney’s little sister
EPISODE 4
Feels stressed by the tour, can’t sleep
The sexualisation, obsession with virginity
EPISODE 5
The Papparazi, someone following Britney 24/7
Photographers slash each others cars to get that image, aggressive competition
That guy who had 10 000 rats in his phone, all on his payroll. He’s disgusting.
Kevin, also tries to make music, but it flops
There was that quote from American writer Rebecca Sollit (45:38), before that it’s said Britney’s entire being was collectively owned.
“You thought you were a mind, but you’re a body.
You thought you could have a public life, but your private life is here to sabotage you.
You thought you had power,
so let us destroy you”
This is about revenge porn, but it’s a Neat fit by the lack of agency given by the judge in the defamation lawsuit
I’m missing the joy of making music, the production side
EPISODE 6
Loses custody of her kids
Shaving the head, the fascism of gender roles
Then she goes and does strange things, is at that hotel with a hoodie
Hitting the Papparazi’s car an umbrella , were worth 400k (although The Sun wouldn’t buy them)
Britney wasn’t the story, all the media frenzy around her was the story. Do sth to provoke her and make her react to create a story.
She played and went along with the paparazzi a bit, comparison to Princess Diana, does that take away the right for her to make the boundaries?
Then went to rehab for a full month.
She met the guy in LA club, talked, wanted his hat
Practised a dance routine for 5 weeks, on one song, but got very bored and frustrated. This is for opening of the MTV Music Awards
Out with artist Puff Daddy. Timberlake came in and apparently wished her luck, caused her panic. She is very panicky and anxious. Ken the hair guy comes. Hair stylist was dismissed, skulking off, but he says that he chose to walk off. Nelly fatardis, they raided the hotel hair salon.
“Ditsy disaster” – new york times, “Bad stripper” – Whoopi Goldberg
She came in fishnets, and mumbled the lip synch, this performance. Dance moves are deffo lacking energy and aren’t really in synch with the moves.
“Have you seen Britney’s kids. The most adorable mistakes” – but sylvia wishes she could delete her roast.
Mara Wilson, former child star – The Narrative: any child in the public eye will come to the tragic conclusion – Narrative completing its arc, a lot of people were routing for her to fail.
People think if someone is big and famous, they need to be brought down. “Assumption you asked for it”
Jenette McCody – Nickelodeon star even more interested in seeing a former child star fail – fascination with people experiencing mental health problems
NEW DOMINANT NARRATIVE NOW – THE TRAINWRECK. THE PAPARAZZI SHOUTED IT IN HER FACE, some editors freely
Fall from grace template
Fergy baiting – Sarah Ferguson
Anthia Turner – analysed how the media destroyed her, dragged her through the mud till she was dead
The value of photographs went up – Kiera Nightley Telegraph 2019
Jude Elison Esdale – The Woman We Love To Hate And Why – Trainwreck, other people claiming their body, their sexual history, their emotional life and their future.
All consuming intimacy – a suffocation, denying them their contest
PEOPLE WANT TO FIND THE FLAW – THE UMBRELLA PICTURE, EMOTIONALLY BRUTAL DISCUSSION, BUT SHE ASKED TO BE LEFT ALONE SEVERAL TIMES, AND THEN CAME ANGER BURST, AND IT SPIRALLED OUT OF CONTEXT AND MADE HER LOOK AS A DANGEROUS PERSON
The world treats you like you deserve to be treated
TMZ
Underlying distrust of women
Look at how Billie Holiday was treated, she said white people came
Amy Winehouse – We got so used to mocking her and laughing at her
TRAINWRECK NEVER HITS MEN AS HARD, EXTREME EXAMPLE HARVEY WEINSTEIN, BUT ALSO MEL GIBSON
Mother Shaming
1st october 2007 – britney lost physical custody of her sons, the media made this happen?
Sits in the car devastated in a parking lot, she rings the guy with a hat. Asks for his help, but he his the same man who her mum was offered jewelry deals and the same man who posed as an undercover detective
Sam Lutvey said he just met her at a party
But her assistant saw the news photograph
Sam was in complete control of her life, business manager, life coach, Sam took complete control of her life – but he later said he was a victim of libel through Britney’s mum’s memoirs
EPISODE 7
Advert: Let there be change, somehow very corporate and very much the world Kelsey wants to fight against with her music, art and movement. If she can.
When journalist asks Britney how she is doing emotionally, Britney reacts by saying: “Eat it, Lick it, snort it, f*** it” – oh, it’s the meme Katie T turned into about dicks at the Showdance Social.
Social Psychologist Dr., check again at 4:00 onwards, the question of going straight back into your art, cause your art is your healing, or maybe you’ve been forced into it, the pressure? Where is the pressure coming from?
Perez Hilton – disgusted and etc. by Britney’s lacklustre performance
“And you want a piece of me?”
All the nasty critics at 7.00
February 2008 – How Britney lost it all, “Inbred Swamp Thing”, Rolling Stone – America’s Cannibilisation of Celebrity – untirely unsympathetic
What Really Happened – Empathy is not my fortè, I looked at her as a cultural breakdown and not as an invidual
Dr. Carol Dyl Shackleford – people from outside are prone to criticise celebrities – but they’re so isolated and don’t have all the freedoms we think they do
Now she has ostracised her family, and she fired loads of staff and didn’t communicate much – lack of trust, isolated herself even more, Felicia for example
David Chapelle – Inside the Actors Studio 2006, before being sectioned, environment is a little sick
Billie Piper in May 2021: “You’re not born crazy, you’re driven mad by certain things” – NME
27 Curse – Kurt Corbain, Janice Choplin, all died at age of 27
Press had Obituary ready even
Shiraz Hassan – A sick man, he is twisted, she had her own little team, so she doesn’t have to go outside. Why shouldn’t someone wanna go out?
They worked with Britney, Adnan Gali dated Britney, but he had trespassed at a wedding in the past. Adnan said years later to the Sun that Britney was the most unhappy person he had ever met
PAPARZI HAVE BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS – suffered from stockholm syndrome, fallen in love with a pappo, and gobne insane – Gwyneth paltrow
RIVALRY BETWEEN SAM LUTVEY AND ADNAN, SO LOVE LOST
Locked herself
Midnight January 3rd 2008 – 51/50 California, involuntary medical hold, paparazi kept following her still, they can hold her up to 72 hours
“POP TART TURNING INTO DERRANGED DIVA”
She and adnan went to Mexico afterwards as an English couple.
TAYLOR SWIFT – MissAmericana
How do I feel about Taylor Music? Too upbeat. When watching this documentary I’m expecting a narrative about stress, I first think it’s not there when she’s happy, but it is. The pressure, this table with all these people around it, businessMEN.
DEPECHE MODE
“Devotional Tour nearly destroyed the band”
COLLABORATORS, FEATURES AND TAKING THEIR VOICE
Listening to Future and like his croaky voice, but I keep worrying about his lyrics, whether they’re full of toxic masculinity. Mainly like his voice?
Kelsey’s collaborators, one of them isn’t satisfying her, so she takes their voice and adds it to their sample, it’s this thing that this natural music is catching itself on again, and maybe she then kills that artist, it feels like the Taking the Face thing in Game of Thrones, Faceless Men.
MUSIC AS ISOLATION:
https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/01/how-david-bowie-helped-my-autistic-son-become-himself.html
FURTHER RESEARCH ON MUSIC:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rnUSNbqtVJI&feature=share
Yesterday, 2019 film about music rising star, in a world which has forgotten a selection of music
ARTISTS LIKE KELSEY, INNOVATIVE:
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/switched-on-bach-how-a-transgender-synth-pioneer-changed-music-1.3699133
AND THOSE WITH THE SAME DEMONS (Fictional and real)
I Knew Her Well, 1965, dark side of business
Film: Judy (Renee Zellweger)
Film about someone who becomes a rock star and hits rock bottom over night
Sylvia Plath, another tortured artist soul
“Aesthetics of Colour”, “den Kampf eines Künstlers, der mit dem kommerziellen Erfolg seinen Körper, seine Seele und seine Identität verkauft sieht. Ein klassisches Drama, dessen Konflikt durch die Hautfarben verstärkt wird: Dass er schwarz ist und aus einem heruntergerockten Viertel an den alten Docks kommt, der windige Geschäftsmann aber, der ihm zwar ein großes Atelier spendiert, dann aber auf immer höhere Produktionszahlen drängt und ihm gar einen afrikanischen Style nahelegt, ein Weißer ist, verschärft die Spannungen. Wäre er anonym geblieben, so stellt sich der Maler (Jean-Philippe Adabra) vor, hätte die Aufmerksamkeit allein seiner Kunst gegolten und nicht seiner Person, den Fragen nach seiner Herkunft. Er ist im Zwiespalt mit sich selbst, als er auf den Deal eingeht – eine Tänzerin, die ihren Körper unter große Spannung setzt, folgt seiner Figur und malt dabei mehr und mehr das Drama seines Selbstverlustes aus. Der weiße Geschäftsmann dagegen, von einem weißen Schauspieler (Johannes Suhm) gespielt, bleibt eine eindimensionale Karikatur des gierigen Kapitalisten. Die Figur des Künstlers ist angelehnt an das Schicksal von Jean-Michel Basquiat. Was ihn dazu antreibt, sich überhaupt auf den Deal einzulassen, erschließt sich in Toks Körners Inszenierung nicht – vieles bleibt als Behauptung stehen. Dennoch, die politischen und sozialen Botschaften an diesem Theater sind so klar wie die Fragen, die sich die Künstler*Innen stellen, danach, wie Unterschiede produziert werden; allein die Ästhetik sucht noch ihre Form. Der Inhalt steht im Vordergrund und zeugt damit einmal mehr von dem Bedürfnis, dass diese Geschichten erzählt werden müssen.” (Quelle)
Bruce Lee trained too hard, it killed him
NFTs will suck the life out of it all?
A star is born
The red shoes
Sunset boulevard
Damon albarn
Felt like I needed the curiosity, positivity and happiness of an artist too, but found some negativity too
This book: London Fields by Martin Amis, comedic side of dystopia.
6.04: damon not coping with fame, running around with his carrots and a loaf of bread – GREAT IMAGE
Says here he got used to interviews, i imagined kelsey eventually breaking down and not ever getting used to them. Or she becomes stoic, contrast, or it’s a cover.
AESTHETIC
PISTOL
Johnny Lydon doesn’t believe Pistol is an accurate representation, but I like the aesthetic
I have to.. “it’s about me, it excludes me” how Lydon is excluded.
Maybe Kelsey watches a representation of it like a biopic, and realises that they aren’t telling the story, just like Britney isn’t really fully in her documentaries, including Pieces of Britney, can she put the pieces together? And what does it matter if everyone else is gonna put the pieces together in a different way? She needs the stage to show people how she puts the pieces together.
= THEATRE PIECE OF KELSEY PUTTING VARIOUS IMAGES TOGETHER ON FLOOR LIKE A PUZZLEDURATIONAL PIECE, never sure how to put them together, keep changing it. Maybe have audience open to interact
MEETING PEOPLE IS EASY:
Have it be a documentary like that.
the great thing is even I don’t know who Kelsey really is. Or K? Or whatever she’s called.
MEETING WITH NIAMH:
Rich person trying to get even more richer through art, World War II money was burnt
Always put pressure on myself
Sheer anger and desperation, we can play multiple scenarios
Creating a character, losing yourself
Black Swan
When you carry on doing it, the fans like it, but you hate it, you feel you’ve sold out
Broken shards of mirror
Hades’ Town (above ground vs underground)
Chekhov’s Gun, you have something on stage, you have to use it, have something
Anxiety Audio Piece, volume can grow as they try to escape.
When I zone out, thoughts are going million miles a minute, zone out
Make-up, backstage before a show, gender & performance, what are artists trying to say, and have a discussion about make-up, contrast of people saying I love your make-up vs that looks weird,
1-4, 5, D&D
INTERVIEW WITH JACK:
What are your ambitions?
Insecurities
Jack needs to send me the file!