Performance Art Project
I often worry about how much I should be sharing with others about my feelings. How much is too much? Or how much is too little? The way you respond to “how are you?” can dictate an entire conversation, not always for the better. So, the simplest answer is usually “I’m fine.” It’s short, simple, and perfectly ambiguous.
I wanted to play with the concept of truth in our daily conversations, particularly with the phrase “I’m fine.” I realized that I have repeated that so frequently that it has become an automatic response. It’s a bizarre combination of three words that live in a perpetual gray zone of truth and lies. It’s like a verbal shield to protect me from any potentially uncomfortable situations. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. But am I?
Hi Casey,
I understood the concept you approached through your performance and it resonated with me as someone who tends to put up a facade to avoid uncomfortable conversations regarding my true feelings. The repetitive response highlighted how we may be so comfortable with this ambiguous response we may neglect expressing our true feelings/desires, which is something I admired. I noticed the varying facial expressions when you answered and how every “I’m fine” felt different from the last, even with subtle pauses before you spoke and so forth. The small talk could have included other questions that would pry into this idea of “I’m fine”, which would feed into how we’d rather automatically reply with this rather dry response instead of answering the question that is being proposed toward us truthfully. However, you executed this well through a series of repetitive questions that never led to a different answer that would otherwise lead to the “potentially uncomfortable situations” that you had mentioned.
