Overview
In 2010, Brian discovered that his deceased ex-boyfriend and 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 in 2011. In 2011, Brian Lobel played a brutal game of
friendship maintenance: over 5 days in cafes in both London and Kuopio,
Finland, Brian gave strangers one minute to decide which of his 1300
Facebook friends to keep or delete. The deleting was real, the pace was
maniacal, the results were final. 50 hours of performance, 800 emails
from angry, amused and intrigued friends and over 2500 comments from
people watching via live stream later, Purge is an interactive
performance lecture exploring the process of, and fallout from purging
and examines how we emotionally and socially interact with digital
media.