Photo: Brooke Newall

tubular hells

"It’s the place where my prediction from the sixties finally came true: “In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” I’m bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, "In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous."

Andy Warhol, Andy Warhol’s Exposures (1979) "Studio 54"

Andy Warhol would have creamed his skinny black jeans if he was alive to download the estimated seventeen hours of intimate, voyeuristic, quotidian video uploaded onto YouTube every minute. Whether it is seen as a platform for self-discovery or a forum for self-promotion, YouTube has the capacity to make every man and his dog famous for fifteen minutes, in fifteen minutes. What lurks beneath this compulsive urge to create and share footage of oneself – often in vulnerable, unflattering moments – with the anonymous masses? Melbourne-based artist Ben…