This piece was performed as part of the “MSU Denver Dance Works with DTAPP’s Metamorphosis” show on April 30th and May 1st. While I wait for the final cut of the video from the videographer to share with y’all, I’m uploading the rehearsal footage. I’ve edited the hue of the video to mimic the lighting we had in the live performance piece.
Hannah Slate and I started creating this piece over a year ago with the intention of
crafting a live performance piece together. Overtime, this work became about exploring the concept of anxiety.
When anxiety strikes, how do we manage? Do we shut down? Do we go into overdrive to ease our anxious thoughts? How do we handle anxiety as individuals? How can we collectively handle anxiety as interconnected beings?
I love the combination of performance art and performing arts here! Dance is an intriguing medium and altogether outside the realm of what I even considered for this project, but it looks impressive and fits the assignment well. The dynamic lighting and sharp sound effects are great additions, and the movements do a great job conveying the alternately resigned, futile, and disturbing feelings behind severe anxiety. The gasping and collapsing in cold light towards the end are particularly impactful. Thanks for sharing this project!
For this assignment, I wanted to show the finalizing part of the installment of my 3D project. This piece expresses my worlds of dissociation. Living with ADHD and dyslexia assists the unlimited potential behind the dissociation worlds or anxiety/depression lows I've cultivated through my twenty-year dwelling. Dissociation has many positive and negative connotations that are complex and challenging to explain to another being that has not experienced this other world. This work expresses the questions I had during my dissociation highs and lows that always stretched back to the common thread of hands. Specifically my hands.
Nice merging of 2D, 3D, and 4D here! I enjoy the theming of trying to form and find connections, particularly with a topic that can make reality seem so disconnected from all else. It’s great to have an outside glimpse into the experience of dissociation, because the rich inner world some people experience when dissociating is otherwise so closed off to everyone else in our world. In a way, the display on the wall reminds me of Meow Wolf, another exhibit meant to explore a version of reality outside our own.
For this project, I decided to focus on studying time and motion. I found the readings of the last module really interesting, so I wanted to continue putting them into practice. For my performance, I wanted to do something simple but at the same time meaningful.
For me, recording myself while doing homework in the park symbolizes a criticism of the time spent on things that are sometimes not so important. Simultaneously, I wanted my audience to watch how the world goes while I focused for hours on things that may not be as important. While doing homework, I could hear families passing by and enjoying quality time with their loved ones. It made me feel a bit nostalgic. Watching the multiple recorded videos allowed me to see the grass, trees, and clouds, moving as time passed.
At first, I wondered if recording myself doing homework could be considered a performance; however, after reflecting on it, I persisted with my initial idea because there are many thoughts and issues to analyze behind this short video. Finally, I concluded that this is what performance is about, pushing the limits to change the perception of what can be considered art.
The view and movement of nature here is particularly captivating, making me feel even more melancholy at the idea that people must ignore such things for the mundane responsibilities of school and work. I believe art encompasses many things, and especially with the addition of the artist’s statement, I have no doubt that this is art; it evokes indignant and wistful feelings alike in great measure for me. Great video and great message.
Performance art makes me uncomfortable. I understand that creating discomfort is often part of the purpose of a performance art piece; the artist challenges the viewer to examine the source of their discomfort surrounding an idea or issue. For me, the source of my discomfort is not necessarily with the issue being addressed. Rather, it is with the performance itself. I personally dislike being the center of attention and I dislike causing conflict for other people. When watching (or even reading about) performance art, I tend to imagine myself in the place of the artist. Just the idea of my being the center of attention while deliberately trying create conflict for the viewer is generates a lot of anxiety for me.
Needless to say, I approached this assignment warily. While I could generate several different ideas, I really didn’t want to do anything. Ultimately, I chose not to do anything at all other than simply confront my own aversion to being the center of attention. I set up a camera so that I could see myself and sat for a full hour as the camera took a time-lapse video of me watching myself. I did not enjoy it. I fidgeted a lot and my expression was often somewhat pained.
I don’t think this exercise changed my discomfort regarding performance art. Watching other people’s videos will likely be an uncomfortable experience for me. However, I did appreciate taking the time to really understand what it is that I have never enjoyed about performance art. Perhaps by understanding what I don’t enjoy will allow me to ultimately get past it and come to appreciate performance art more.
I choose to do my own take on The Artist is Present
After watching the documentary I thought it was such a powerful piece I want to recreate and experience something similar using animals in a natural but slightly surreal environment.
I wanted the piece to obviously have some humor to it, but still show some connection
to the characters .
It definitely was fun and I loved the process of getting the whole thing together.
Even though I work in film and commercials I still enjoy putting together all the moving parts of a project..
One dose of testosterone takes two needles to administer: one large needle to draw the thick carrying oil from its vial and one thin needle for the actual injection. For this demonstration, I removed needles from my sharps container two at a time and drew a tally mark on myself for each pair, representing one dose or one week of medication per mark.
Sharps containers are designed not to have anything retrieved from within, with edges that catch painfully on withdrawing hands if the whole appendage reaches in. By taking this unintended action for each mark, I sought to represent the burden of performance on transgender individuals: society demands lifelong medication and surgical procedures to grant people a sliver of legitimacy, and those without the means or desire to medically “transition” face scorn or disbelief.
The parts of me visible in frame are arms demonstrating action and racking up tally marks, a bound chest, and shoulder acne. For all its typical undesirability, the acne is one of my preferred traits, as shoulder acne was the first sign that my medication was doing anything over the span of several doses. By contrast, I am medically unqualified for a chest masculinization surgery at present, so the archetypical transmasculine trait of a binder both represents a conformity to the expectations of young trans men and my inability to be fully accepted.
A minute was not nearly enough to extract and count all my used needles, but I sought to demonstrate this weighing of “good trans person” points in that time. Unfair expectations are placed on people who do not bind, tuck, undergo voice training, get expensive surgeries, or lose weight to transition; people can forgo these due medical reasons, financial limitations, safety concerns, closeting, comfort, or any number of other reasons, and doing so does not make them any less transgender.
*I recommend watching this with headphones, so you can hear the white noise, as well.
Forced to Look
Everyone has heard the phrase, “Eyes are the window to the soul.” Therefore in this piece, I wanted the focus of the performance to be on the eyes as if we were staring at each other for one minute straight. Staring often makes one uncomfortable like you’re being judged in some way or another. However, looking into someone’s eyes can tell you a lot about them like the quote above mentions.
The performance itself was uncomfortable for me, but I wanted to try to do something I’ve never done before and that would be interesting. Either way, both artist and viewer participant in the performance and face discomfort through the continuous staring.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the right environment or the time to record my piece. However, the concept for my piece was based on my disliking of labels that society puts on people. In my own opinion, we don't have to be identified or defined by certain things based on different groups of people that we are associated with. It seems like our society makes it so that we have to act differently depending on the group of people that we are with at any given moment. To demonstrate how frustrating, unsure, and anxiety evoking this can be, I covered myself in labels to weigh me down and make things uncomfortable and difficult for me to do things. If I were to do this performance/experiment piece I would have gone out in public with a sharpie, tape, and paper for people to have other people put a label to who I am. The lesson of my piece is that we as people should be seen for who we are, not just defined by one characteristic amongst certain groups of people. We should be able to be who we are amongst all groups of people that we reside with.
So, I have Tourette Syndrome, and multiple occasions I've been told by friends, an art professor or two, and my sister that I should do a video and/or art based on my tics. However, I have always disliked being in videos or taking photos because they almost always capture a tic or two and I hate the way they look. I avoided the idea of filming. my tics for a while because it felt weird and a bit personal, but I continued coming back to the idea and decided to go for it.
I placed myself in a white "box" that I created and dressed in black. I intended for the lighting to be more direct and shine mostly on my face, but I struggled to achieve this with the supplies I had at home. The goal of the white box, black clothes, and lighting was to capture how it feels for me to tic in public. Most of the time people hardly notice, but it feels like everyone saw or heard it. Now, I know about the spotlight effect where we have a tendency to overestimate how much other people notice about us, but tics take that awareness to the next level for me. As my tic disorder from elementary school developed into Tourettes my freshman year of college, I began to cope through humor (healthy humor!). It's made life with unintentional stretching and shaking, occasional cussing and random sounds much easier. Additionally, it always feels like a bit of a taboo subject for others to talk with me about, and I want to break that barrier. So in my performance piece, my goal was to not suppress my tics, and also not laugh at the bigger ones like I normally do (I slipped up a few times, but that's alright). I filmed myself for about 5 minutes, and then cut the video down to the "best" segments of my tics. (however, the video is sped up to get close to the 1 minute mark)
Although I only have a few at the moment that you can see in the video, I have a whole array of tics that aren't displayed here. In my attempt to become more comfortable with my tics and normalize talking about it, I'd like to share a few with you!
I used to click my tongue with my mouth closed
sometimes I pound my phone screen kind of hard with my fingers while I type
for a while there my right hand would shake like I was doing jazz hands
my vocal tics tend to circulate around words with the sounds "st" or "t" (hence the words in the video shit and just)
luckily, for the time being, my tics aren't hindering my day to day life, but I have one or two that makes eating very difficult
oftentimes, I'll copy a word or phrase that someone says to me after they say it (this one makes my sister mad lol)
The tics in my video include:
I'll clench my stomach a few times in a row
touching the tip of my nose
a weird throat sound?? (i hate this one!)
some words
stretching my neck
and blinking weird
Thanks for reading this far and watching my tic attack video :)
For this project, I was interested in using repetition to explore a meditative state. I lost track of the minute--which quickly turned to three--as I watched paint pool in varying opacities. I wanted to allow mistakes and unevenness. At times, my hand lost the pattern of the grid. The unpredictable end result became a part of this meditative process, a reminder to call in a lot of ease--a tenderness I believe we could all use as the semester winds down.
Lastly, here I am reminded that "repetition is a form of change." While I can resist routine, favoring a little controlled chaos, I must remember that no single effort is ever the same as the last, and that often it is by staying true that we may continue to evolve into greater and greater versions of ourselves.
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