“Famehungry,” a show that’s performed simultaneously for in-person and online crowds, comes to New York in the wake of the app’s brief ban in the United States.
“If you get me to 20,000 likes, I’ll do something amazing.”
That is what the performance artist Louise Orwin promises audiences in “Famehungry,” a TikTok-set existential crisis about being an entertainer in the digital age. Presented before a live crowd, it is also simultaneously livestreamed on the app.
In Wednesday’s show, Orwin performed tasks inspired by what she has seen on TikTok Live: eating in front of the camera, running on a treadmill, drinking from a Stanley Tumbler and performing TikTok dances, all while describing her career in performance art.
Whether Orwin’s antics would be witnessed by audiences beyond SoHo Playhouse, where “Famehungry” is running until Feb. 8 after success at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, was an open question this weekend as the app was briefly banned in the United States.
“The jeopardy in terms of the practicalities of the show isn’t great, but also the sense of political jeopardy around the ban is really interesting for the work as well,” Orwin said. “It’s a strange situation to be in.”
Congress passed legislation last year to ban TikTok unless it was sold to a government-approved buyer, citing concerns that the Chinese government could gain access to sensitive user data and manipulate content on the app, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.
After the Supreme Court upheld the law last week, TikTok briefly went dark before flickering back to life for many users when the incoming president, Donald J. Trump, indicated support for the app. (After Trump’s inauguration on Monday, he signed an executive order stalling the ban for 75 days.)