Project 02: My Idea

Alexandros Barbayianis
Aug 6
2 min read

Updated: Aug 8

"Tip Me" A Performance by Barbie Jannis

Priority Sliders

For my sliders, I chose:

Physical over digital
Aesthetics over narrative
Being on the NYU Tisch floor over experiencing NYC (since I live here)
Make just to make over make with meaning
Building expertise over new/skills tools

Interestingly, my top three choices didn’t fully align with Project 2. The performance was neither strictly physical nor digital, and I ended up prioritizing narrative over aesthetics in this case. Still, being on the Tisch floor was a valuable part of my process, which involved rehearsing in person here.

Other Project Ideas I Considered

A short film mixing archival queer nightlife footage with new scenes imagining speculative drag futures.
A sculptural garment from repurposed MFTA materials for a drag performance.

Creative Brief (Exploration 04)

My project is: A short live drag-inspired performance with staged audience interaction.

My project isn’t: An in-depth political or emotional statement on drag culture.

Constraints:

Arduino for prop buttons, basic audio editing for mashup track.
Classmates as live performance spectators.
2 days to rehearse, 1 day for Arduino build and prop setup, 1 day for tech test.
Minimal costume to focus attention on the performance and the "tipping" gimmick.

What did you make?

For Project 02, I created a short live drag-inspired performance titled "Tip Me". I performed in a simple costume (no makeup, no padding, no breastplate) with a wig, lip-syncing to a mashup of Noel’s Lambert from The Cyclone Musical and the viral TikTok audio "My Money Don’t Jiggle Jiggle, It Folds".

The setup included a table with four “Click to Tip” buttons connected to Arduino boards, except they were decoys. Only when I secretly powered the board did any button actually work. This created a playful disconnect between audience action and result.

The piece does not have a deep singular meaning and is mostly for entertainment, but it touches on the overlap between clickbait economics on social media where likes equal money and the realities of live performers who often work paycheck to paycheck.