Productions
The Glory Machine | Billy Mullaney
The Glory Machine is a theatre performance consisting entirely and solely of filming and editing a promotional trailer for the performance itself. We observe the rapid-fire setup and recording of eighty microscenes, which are simultaneously edited and arranged into a short trailer video. Conceived as a virus, The Glory Machine follows social media logic by producing its own promotional material to reproduce itself indefinitely.
The piece was inspired by the ways in which we curate and perform idealized versions of ourselves online through social media platforms and beyond. By privileging the development of web presence over the performance itself, The Glory Machine archly proposes an all-in investment into “cultural capital”, responding to (by playing along with) the labor obligatorily required to generate online presence and social media outreach.
“Super-efficient trailer recording points to dangers of attention economy. […] It very lovingly puts its finger on the sore spot. Well worth it.”
– Theaterkrant (Critic’s Choice)
Tour dates
About Billy Mullaney
Billy Mullaney (USA) is an Amsterdam-based artist working in theatre, choreography, and performance art. His research focuses on representational practices in and of various sites of performance, the modes of spectatorship they conventionally engender, and how interventions in the former affect the latter. By rigorously embodying such interventions, Billy’s work often foregrounds the physiological impact of movement and thought on the body, indexing the stakes of adhering too closely (or too successfully) to logics such as the attention economy or post-fordist production. This research has led him to experiment with forms ranging from quantum physics lectures and children’s television shows to promotional trailers and tarot card readings.
Credits
Created by:
Billy Mullaney
Performed by:
Esmée Begemann, Elliot Dehaspe, Jimmy Grima, Maja Grzeczka, Billy Mullaney, Ylva Rietman en Tom de Ronde
Light and technique:
Mathisse Coornaert
Artistic advice:
Andrea Božić and Konstantina Georgelou
Production:
Marco Heijne
Management TILT:
Marieke van Bueren
Produced by:
TILT & Veem House for Performance
Co-produced by:
Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam
Special thanks to:
Ruth Borg and Laura Boser
Made possible by:
the financial contribution of NORMA fonds, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst and Janivo Stichting
Research made possible by:
DAS Theatre & Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds/Horizon
Photo:
Thomas Lenden
