How does the use of costume contribute to the effectiveness of environmental activism online
Introduction
My purpose of the Practice as Research project was to compare the use of costume and
makeup with the effectiveness of environmental activism through an online forum. Originally
the project was to analyse the use of costume as a full scale production using other
performers, but when I was weighing this out through a one-on-one with the lecturer, it made
me realise that what I wanted to do overall was really daring, therefore I scaled the
performance down. Another factor that had influenced my project, later on was that having
the idea of doing the project as a street protest that I was suggested, but through life
experience of going to a street protest about animal cruelty which is a topic that I am
interested in, by being a spectator of the street protest, I came to the conclusion of how
vulnerable I am as a person and my beliefs are as being a vegetarian as I got confronted by
both the spectators who were against and the participants of whom were vegan and had a
different view to me being a vegetarian. The lesson that I took away from the street protest
was that you will always get people who don’t believe and who won’t respect your view, but
also who will attack with words to you but also online you will also receive negative
comments by anyone but you have a level of control online as you can block them and
remove their comment from your view but in real life, the only option is either to defend and
get into a heated argument or to simply walk away from the situation. This however would
not be applicable in terms of my study as I feel that I need to get my message out there into
the world. Taking this forward, I will take this to streets or even to a festival but either go to
an area where I know more people will listen, or have active participants who will act as
spectators to eliminate those who are there to have a go at me rather than just talking about
their own opinion.
A hurdle that I have overcome was thinking about how to phrase the question but also how to
stage this project in a way that didn’t sound too complicated, as I would get confused and
stuck in a way of doing my research in regards to my project. A boundary that I have to also
overcome was settling on a set idea and a method of creating this performance, which ended
up in a couple of different areas, which stems back to the 2000s, when teenagers and people
would hold up pieces of paper with information on as it grabbed the attention of different
people. This was because of a popular film, Love Actually, which had made this idea go viral
in terms of films as it was a new idea at the time. Other influencers and teenagers along the
time decided to take this onto YouTube to grab a lot of people’s awareness to multiple of
different topics such as suicide, mental health and bullying which was all a huge problem at
the time of the popularity.
The strengths of the project that I have predicted are the level of creativity, the amount of
research and organisational skills but in terms of academics it is a challenging area and not as
much resources as other areas but this will be combined with my knowledge of
environmental theatre but also gain knowledge in costume design, makeup design but also in
feeling more confident in uploading my beliefs on an online platform despite the amount of
,people within the world who may not agree with my beliefs and learning how to use the
analytics but also researching more information about environmental activism, activism as a
political movement and in online activism with techniques.
The weaknesses are how complex the project started off to be, the amount of time that I have
left after condensing this down but also working as an individual, knowing a good place to
start and the lack of a budget but in terms of academics are the amount of unique research
that is needed to fully understand what I am about to achieve, getting really organised and
knowing exactly how to spend my time as well as investing more time with this as there were
other projects and modules that were going into this module as a whole.
Description of Task
➢ A series of online videos to be released on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram inspired
by public service announcement advertisements (PSA) for environmental activism.
➢ All of the videos are performed in different costumes and as different characters.
➢ In addition to the videos, there will be a release of posts with pictures and a message
of “Stop hunting for sport”.
➢ The project will be analysed through looking at the analytics provided on the
platforms, to study the amount of views to determine which videos have been
successful in reaching more people and which haven’t. Also to determine how
“popular” each method and each platform have been in conveying the message of
“stopping hunting for sport”.
➢ A debrief will be uploaded both before the study and after the study concludes. The
debriefs will appear in both forms of a post of a flyer with a description underneath
and in videos explaining what will be happening and what has happened for the
closure of the study whilst also thanking those who have been watching the videos.
Main Body
Environmental Activism and Online Activism
“Any form of activity by environmentalists that is designed to raise public awareness of
environmental issues.” (1) This means in terms of my project, the best approach would be
over social media as a lot of people worldwide go on social media whilst if it was a street
protest you are bringing awareness to only a small region. “ hunting is now nothing more
than a violent form of recreation that the vast majority of hunters do not need for
subsistence.1 Hunting has contributed to the extinction of animal species all over the world,
including the Tasmanian tiger and the great auk.” (3 PETA) This is a quote that I have used
in a way that I could help shift my research to make it factual. By researching on a global
scale, I am able to keep the information that I am researching non-biased.
When looking back on the project as a whole, as I had started uploading, I noticed that the
first lot of videos, had the official audio that I ended up using in the end instead of creating a
new audio and writing a new message behind since, writing a new message is quite time
consuming for as little as for a five minute video, as there are a lot of research that goes into
, the audio, which includes making sure that you have done a lot of research, double checking
with more than one source to make sure that the information is correct, also making sure that
the sources are reliable as well as creatively writing it in a way that is persuasive but also
welcoming to anyone who is watching it. Therefore, if I had a lot more time for this project, I
wouldn’t just make it a full scale performance but make sure that everything within the
performance is accurate and is persuasive. This would also come under environmental
theatre, which I have studied previously on. As much as I did want to make this a full scale
performance, when the module started, I was still getting to know everyone, so in effect I
would have to host an audition, also make sure that the people who I would have hired are
reliable and would turn up to the rehearsal, schedule rehearsals, book rooms, create a
soundscape using musical instruments and my voice, also would need to create a script,
whilst directing, coming up with the choreography, writing the songs if there were any, create
the music score by writing it, design and create the costumes, design and do everyone’s
makeup and make sure that I could book a venue, print out posters, and invite audience
members to come and view it. A project like this can take between a year and five years to
perfect so I wouldn’t have been able to do this alongside other assignments and then make
sure that my portfolio was completed on top of this. Taking this forward, I would do this as a
full scale performance as it wouldn’t be visible for a project.
The model that my performance has used is the Melissa Trimingham’s spiral model which is
“…the paradigm model of progress that allows for this is the 'hermeneutic-interpretive' spiral
model where progress is not linear but circular; a spiral which constantly returns us to our
original point of entry but with renewed understanding.”. (2). In terms of my study, for the
method that I work towards, all of my research is backed up with practicality which in other
words just spirals from a question into a theory into methodology which is then backed up
with facts and research to make the performance a more factual persuasive technique which
in the conjunction on research of online activism, environmental activism, real life experience
and through previous techniques which I have used before, I was able to create something
that is in balance with activism and theatre by combining the use of politics in environment
and the works of theatre. I would then take this exploration further when working in a
practical space, performing in front of a live audience before passing on my teachings onto
other performers if I make this into a full scale performance, which would then also fall into a
combination of contemporary theatre, environmental theatre and environmental activism, but
then include this in a broadcast or even a streaming platform and that level would be
considered to be environmental online activism.
My lineage is made up of several environmental activists such as Dominique Palmer, Tori
Tsui, Fatou Jeng, David Attenborogh and Ecaterina Lutisina. Each of my chosen lineages
have all done work in regards to both animal activism and environmental climate justice
movements activism.
“Climate justice is a chance for us to rewrite and transform our relationships with one another
and campaign for reparative actions that benefit society’s most marginalised.” (6) Even
though this isn’t necessarily linked to hunting for sport, it’s still an environmental social
