The methodology developed for Divine Commodity was experiential and performative in nature, with knowledge generated through participation and embodiment in which the research environment became an active part of the process, allowing questions to be explored through direct experience.

Unexpected encounters and difficulties became catalysts for further enquiry. Challenges with foot choreography for example led to an investigation of embodiment and movement, while the increasingly complex relationship between myself and Lola prompted reflection on performance, identity and authorship.

The methodology therefore remained open and responsive. Experience generated new questions, which in turn altered the direction of the practice. Weekly video diaries supported this reflexive process, providing an ongoing record of observations, experiences and shifts in thinking.

The construction of a persona was fundamental to the methodology of Divine Commodity. Lola provided a means of entering and participating in an algorithmic environment that would otherwise have been inaccessible to me as the artist. Working through a fictional identity allowed access to a distinct platform ecology shaped by different visibility structures, audiences, economies and behavioural expectations. This enabled me to experience aspects of platform culture and online sex work from within, including questions of intimacy, exploitation, online safety and algorithmic visibility, while encountering visual, cultural and generational influences beyond the logic of my own online presence. 

The methodology therefore involved both constructing and inhabiting the persona. The distinction between Lola and myself created a degree of distance that made participation in questions of sexuality, intimacy, emotional labour and self-exposure possible, while inhabiting her continually tested the limits of that separation. Lola was also digitally inhabited by different members of the team while remaining recognisably the same individual. This provided an opportunity to examine the relationship between the apparent singularity of an online persona and the collective processes through which such identities can actually be produced and maintained.

Lola functioned simultaneously as a means of accessing the research environment, an artistic construction and a site through which questions of identity, authorship, intimacy and self-commodification could be experienced and examined.

Artistic production of Divine Commodity developed through a combination of visual research, performance, image-making, video production and writing. The weekly video diaries developed their own performative ritual. Recorded in a dedicated velvet-curtained studio space, usually on Sundays. 

Photography and video formed the central modes of image-making. Monthly shoots were organised around thematic groups derived from art-historical and Christian references. Photographic and moving-image materials were then developed simultaneously. Bodily preparation became part of the artistic methodology. Nail colour, design, skin and foot condition were carefully considered, with decisions contributing to the symbolic construction of the character while also demonstrating the extent to which the body itself had become a material requiring preparation and maintenance for the image.

Embodiment became a further area of experimentation through collaboration with choreographer and interdisciplinary artist Nithya Iyer. Movement exercises and rehearsals explored how the feet could communicate character, emotion and narrative. 

Performance also continued between shoots through Lola's online presence. Writing became an artistic practice in itself, encompassing captions and hooks for Instagram and TikTok, Lola's weekly Sunday sermons, and direct correspondence with subscribers. These interactions required Lola's personality, tone and relationships to be continually produced and maintained. 

Across these processes, artistic production became a continual negotiation between intention and circumstance. The original visual and conceptual framework provided a starting point, but embodiment, location, material conditions, platform requirements and the scale of production repeatedly altered how the work could be made. 

OnlyFans, Instagram and TikTok functioned as interconnected but distinct research environments, each with different audiences, conventions, visibility structures and economic models. Working across all three allowed the project to observe how the same persona and material changed as it moved between different digital contexts.

The research involved continual observation, participation and adaptation. Differences in platform policies, moderation, algorithms and audience behaviour required platform-specific approaches to content, communication and promotion. Analytics provided measurable feedback on engagement and reach, while less transparent systems of moderation and visibility required ongoing trial and error.

These conditions demonstrated that platforms do not simply provide spaces for distributing work; they actively shape what can be produced, how it is communicated, what becomes visible and, ultimately, what can become economically viable. Platform-based research therefore became a way of examining how digital environments influence artistic production, audience engagement and the value attributed to images and personas.

Collaboration became increasingly central to the methodology of the project. The collaborators were not originally conceived as co-researchers, but were brought in at different stages as the needs of the project expanded and new forms of expertise became necessary developing an expanding network of artistic, technical and critical knowledge. The increasing scale of production also required additional practical support, making the day-to-day operation of the project materially sustainable.

As the research developed, new areas of enquiry emerged that had not been anticipated at the outset, including algorithmic bias, AI-mediated communication, the formation of emotional attachment with online personas, and the digital and psychological labour involved in inhabiting an evolving fictional persona. These developments required further assistance and specialist knowledge, with conversations and collaborations opening new paths of enquiry.

By the end of the research period, Divine Commodity had therefore become increasingly collaborative and interdisciplinary, not simply because the workload required it, but because the research itself demonstrated the limitations of approaching these systems from a singular perspective. This also became significant to the project's understanding of online personas: what appears to be an individual performer or creator can in practice be the product of multiple people, forms of expertise and distributed labour. Collaboration thus became both a practical condition of the project and a finding within the research itself.