A short performance expressing female strength and anger.
This is just a generic performance in the tradition of Abromovic, but the idea was to make marks on myself that mirrored the sculpture on the floor. (Pictured)
Isomorphy A performance meant to show the anatomical similarly of the top and bottom halves of the human body.
Cone Shapes A ritual of worship making symbolic offerings of ribbon to cone-shaped deities.
Devolution
Beginning as a bi-pedal anthropod, I progressively become more and more primitive in my movements as I eat a 10 pound note, in an allegory of the emotional debasement of capitalism.
A short performance aimed at demonstrating the human body in an unusual position.
Fear of Snow
After seeing sensationalist weather reporting of hurricane Ike in Texas, and watching weather reports, I made a performance to evoke paranoid supervision of the weather. A clip about zombie attacks is played over a clip of me wandering among umbrellas and then disappearing before crouching defensively under an umbrella to protect myself from a small amount of 'snow'.
Mother and Father During this performance I channeled my parents, represented by a suitcase and an ironing board. As the child and adolescent, I 'try on' each of my parents modes of living and philosophies. While wearing the burden of the ironing board and the suitcase, I go about the tasks of life, represented by picking up objects from the floor. Finding their philosophies inadequate to my experience, I then 'drop' the parental frameworks, and leave.
Oracle
For this piece, I reenacted the ritual of the Greek oracle of Delphi. The purpose was to emphasize the power of the female and the unconscious. I looked at my face in water, I threw beans and I augured from 'intestines' (wet ribbon) pulled from a pillow. Between each ritual, I channeled a fictional goddess with its legs spread by scuttering across the floor and held up a gold icon invoking the goddess.
Feminine mystique
This wall hanging was accompanied by a performance piece demonstrating how women seek identity in material objects, particularly clothes and fashion accessories. It was a tactile-interactive piece which the audience was meant to be able to touch to create an experience similar to a woman's daily interaction with her possessions.
Grub table
For this performance I wrapped my head in tin foil, thereby covering my sensory organs, to represent the typical sterility of art, but offered the audience maggots from a table. The table was also redolent with the smell of basil concentrate coming from a small potted plant. Above the table was the following sign:
PLEASE TOUCH AND SMELL!
The scent you smell is basil, and the grubs are living creatures which are there for the purpose of being pet!
The idea was to revitalize lost tactile and olfactory senses in mainstream multimedia and photographic art, which is primarily audio/visual. Mainstream consumer art, which is often conceptual or reproduced, is partially intangible to humans. With this piece I sought to liberate art from the mediums supported by commercial institutions and reveals the full spectrum of human sensory perception. However, the audience generally refused to touch the table with the maggots and the smell, which shows, I think, the degree to which they fear their own senses.
