This article was taken from the June 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
British performance artist Bryony Kimmings is a fan of social experiments -- whether getting drunk for research or inventing tween pop stars. Her alter ego, Catherine Bennett, wears rollnecks and spectacles, sings about political apathy and loves paleontology. "I asked my nine-year-old niece, Taylor, to invent an alternative pop star as a protest against current offerings," says Kimmings, 33. "She invented Catherine, who, thus far, has been played on BBC Radio 1, broadcast on Sky News, championed by two MPs, spoken at Yoko Ono's Meltdown, performed at Latitude Festival and been turned into two theatre productions." The project, known as Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model, reached the £10,000 Kickstarter target required to film a documentary by filmmaker Rebecca Brand.
Kimmings is aware of the Pseuds Corner aspect of her work. "I retraced my STI back to its source to allow women to talk openly about sexual health, and have consumed copious amounts of alcohol with neuroscientists to investigate the link between alcohol and creativity," she says. The experiment involved her drinking increasing amounts of Smirnoff vodka over seven days, while creating music, dance and written stories.
Her fascination with science continues with Bennett: her music is made using neuroscience from research into earworms -- the elements that make a song catchy -- conducted by Goldsmiths, University of London and 6 Music. "My work is loud, honest and political," says Kimmings, "but I want it to be fun".
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
