Yesterday evening Petra Nimm shared her friend Melusine's obituary on her own Facebook page as well as the page of Melanie Weiden -Melusine's social media alter ego. Inspired by Petra's thoughtfulness I decided to momentarily reactivate my own FB account after a nearly three month absence from all forms of social media. I was a bit surprised by the responses both Petra and I have received as of the next morning. Some of the responders are fully aware of the identity of Melusine van der Weyden but played along and/or expressed their curiosity of where this might lead. Others, whom I thought knew who she was, by there responses I see either they do not know or did not closely read the text of the obituary posted. This says to me much about how information is received/perceived via social media postings. Most surprising was the text message I received from my mother, who having seen the post online and sent her condolences there, wrote "Sorry to learn about the passing of your friend. ... heart emoji, smiley face blowing kiss emoji". I anticipated that Melusine's 'death' might produce greater potential than if she'd remained 'alive'. In killing her off, she becomes more of a character from a soap opera -who knows what form she'll return in, not to mention the "sack of papers of her most recent writings and poems" she has left behind. I think about July 3, 1973 when from the stage of the Hammersmith in London David Bowie announced that after tonight Ziggy Stardust would be no more. Yeah, right. And then there are the artistic and literary 'hoaxes' I have been researching ... who was R. Mutt? what happened with J.T. LeRoy? how did Ern Malley change the perception and relations between conservative and modernist literature and art in Australia in the mid-twentieth century? While I do not see the personas as 'hoaxes' per se, they are tools for my studio practice, I do see where taking them out of the studio and introducing them to the world as a whole creates the potential for a 'hoax' or at least to raise awareness of what I am researching on their application as tools in the studio practice and to generate further questioning on understandings of the perception of identity by the spectator. In this regard it seems that Melusine could be worth more to me dead than she ever was alive.
A couple of screen shots of the social media responses.
Condolences for Melusine's passing to my Facebook page posting of her obituary.
Update, later this morning. The condolences via text message and on FB keep coming in. Again, some know who Melusine was ... and are asking if she left her Birkin bag around. unfortunately the Brooklyn AirBnB people did not return it. I suspect they sold it to pay next month's rent.
A mid-day update.
No more comments have been posted and only a couple of sad faces from the quick 'like' button. However, this has with at least one person gone the way of the literary hoax. I just spoke with a very concerned friend who thought I had lost someone close to me. She was not happy to find out this person is a persona, the definition and how Melusine and all this are a part of my research. It was an interesting conversation because this person is herself a writer of crime novels, and although as she said her artistic taste tends to fall into the realm of Thomas Kincaide, which is not entirely true -she also is drawn to formal abstraction and has a few of my paintings and drawings, as a writer and person who is engaged with the everyday issues raised by the veracity of social media she was able to have the conversation. She did ask if I could give her a heads up before pulling anything like this again. I would do that for her by contacting her directly, but in general doing so would have not been possible -akin to explaining a joke before telling it. Not that this is a 'joke' and if one spent 10 minutes explaining why the chicken crossed the road before asking "Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side." that still has the potential to bring about a laugh because of how the joke was delivered. I explained to my (hopefully still) friend -we have agreed to meet soon for a drink and she is still willing to read my dissertation- it is highly unlikely that I would do something like this again. The other two personas do not serve the same purpose as Melusine does in my research and would not warrant 'killing them off' or any kind of Facebook post. I also had to confirm to her that although I am highly neurotic, have experienced a nervous breakdown recently, I am not psychotic or experiencing a psychotic break. I affirmed I do not 'see' people or ghosts wandering around my studio; instead taking my cue from theater, performance and writing to bring about the personas. I explained that in a way it is when the writer assumes the voice of the character to write; or when an author writing under a pseudonym not just for the purpose of separating the work from work produced under his or her own identity but to really write differently needs to find the voice of the pseudonym who would in turn find the voices of the characters/narrator of the book that pseudonym would write.
This has identified for me the pitfall of this project, as well as affirmed the difficulty of discussing it with the majority of the people I know at this stage in the process. Of those expressing their condolences on Facebook the ones who really know and understand have played along. I would say of those who were not aware of who Melusine is most will make no further contact to me about her. A few, like this friend might, but maybe not with as extreme concern, rather in passing if and when we happen to meet face to face or to speak on the telephone.
It has been an interesting turn of the page.