#Me Too - Shame

Abstract

#Me Too - Shame is one of a number of musical compositions that responds to the 2017/2018 digital #Me Too campaign and the events that unfolded around the Harvey Weinstein scandal. The work explores the experiences and emotions of the victims and focusses on the prevalence of the feeling of shame. The work utilises texts and commentary from the #me too social media movement. <br/> #Me Too - Shame is the first collaboration of two female artists Hewitt and Mainsbridge. Both artists work with gestural movement detection systems to devise musical performances for voice, electronics and the body. Hewitt works with her eMic and wearable controllers that detect arm and hand movements, while Mainsbridge has designed a system that detects whole body motion via the Kinect gaming controller. The #Me Too content provided powerful inspiration for two female artists to work with. The artists were interested in gender related content particularly given the collaboration itself being between two women working with technology which is historically a non-traditional field of practice for women. The composition itself utilises loops and repetition to drive home the recurring stories told by #Me Too victims.