poolboy
poolboy00 is a reality show - experimental memoir - talk show - durational performance for the streaming platform Twitch.
poolboy: don’t pick upMarch 21-23, 2024 at 8pm
The Museum of Human Achievement
poolboy: don’t pick up is an immersive party and performance about submissiveness, friendship, and failure. Your computer is whitehot in your lap. What happens next is entirely in your control.
poolboy is trying to write a murder mystery. His best friend, momgrab (artist Julia Mounsey), is ghosting him. To avoid writing, poolboy will do anything you say. Anything. don’t pick up seems simple, an excavation of 20 years of writing: from School of Rock fanfic to failed plays to abandoned journals. The audience freely interrupts with questions, new conversation topics, or by giving poolboy tasks to complete on the spot. Reality and fiction intertwine. All is not what it seems. poolboy: don’t pick up is pure chaos: a participatory, living, white-knuckle document of poolboy’s very real life.
about poolboy00
This is the fifth iteration of poolboy00. Since 2020, Houston-born, Austin-based artist Sam Mayer has chronicled his life on-and-offline as his alter ego: poolboy00. This documentation became poolboy00 (2020-present) an experimental reality show/participatory memoir/talk show for the streaming platform Twitch and irl. Initially inspired by The Real Housewives franchise, it has since morphed into long-term performance about friendship, public intimacy, partying, surveillance, and control. Previous iterations have been presented at Beaubourg, Co-Lab Projects, Crashbox, and UT Austin.
This project is supported in part by the City of Austin Economic Development Department.
ticket link: https://withfriends.co/event/17620912/poolboy_dont_pick_up
linktree: https://linktr.ee/poolboy00
Check out this profile of poolboy in Arts and Culture Texas.
poolboy: The Visitors
March 13-18
614 Gravier
Check out this review in Antigravity magazine (it’s at the very bottom).
performances: March 17-18 8:00pm-10:00pm
performance, installation, vibes, tunes, IRL chaos
open studio: March 13-16 1:00pm-5:00pm
drop in and out, observe, participate, get drunk with poolboy and momgrab while they work.
poolboy is making a show about submissiveness and friendship. What happens is entirely in your control. The show is a weeklong discussion between two friends, between you and poolboy, between control and the object. Your computer is whitehot in your lap. Write your desire down on a notecard and watch it create reality.
poolboy: The Visitors is a weeklong residency that invites viewers to become the raw material for an immersive IRL performance and party. poolboy00 is artist Sam Mayer’s online alter ego and the subject of poolboy00 (2020-present): an ongoing, durational reality show/interactive memoir/talk show for the streaming platform Twitch. In The Visitors, poolboy engages in a series of ever-escalating interactions with collaborators, spectators, and technology at daily open studios. At the end of the week poolboy00 and momgrab (artist Julia Mounsey) will perform and host a big party at 614 Gravier. poolboy: The Visitors is part installation, part interactive performance, and all vibes.
poolboy: I WANT TO LISTEN was performed July 18-23 in Austin Texas. These are pictures from the performance on July 23. They were taken by Ryan Davis.
poolboy: I WANT TO LISTENjuly 18 - 23
Co-Lab Projects (Austin TX)
w Julia Mounsey
click the photo for more info
season two runs August 1 - August 31 on Twitch and live in Austin (at Crashbox). CLICK FOR STREAMING SCHEDULE. Follow along on Twitch, Instagram, Twitter, Discord, and read the poolboy digest.
here’s what sightlines said about season one!
here’s what the daily texan said about season one!
the auston chronicle reco’d season two!
catch up:
season one ran from September 2020 - November 2020 and was produced by UTNT (UT New Theater). the production was directed by Mike Stelle.
click for the poolboy digest, a weekly newsletter.
poolboy00 can be found live on Twitch both during performance periods and off periods here.
fan collected screenshots from season one
collected instagram stories from season one
the resident poolboy00 artist is andy gottschalk. fan collected screenshots from season one
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