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Scratch Performance
A brutal game of friendship maintenance. Using content generated when Brian gave strangers 1 minute to decide whether to keep or delete his 1300 Facebook friends, Purge explores how we emotionally and socially interact with digital media.
In June and September 2011 Brian Lobel played the world’s most brutal game of friendship maintenance. Over 5 days in both London and Kupio, Finland, Brian gave strangers in café’s 1 minute to decide which of his 1300 Facebook friends to keep or delete.
50 hours of performance, 800 emails from angry amused and intrigued friends and over 2500 comments from people watching via live stream later, Purge explores how we emotionally and socially interact with digital media.
In 2010, Brian discovered that his deceased best friend, Grant, had deleted him from Friendster (a pre-Facebook networking site), which neither had checked since they stopped dating in 2006. Although they had since re-‘friended‘ in life (both virtually and non-virtually), it was the discovery of this past de-friending (and impossibility to ‘reconnect‘ since Grant’s death), which inspired Brian to create Purge.
