2017

Performers: Mandy Morrison, Samantha Siegel, Tiara Francis
As the American proclivity of success and achievement is partially defined by ‘having a roof over one’s head’, living apart from this norm, segregates those who have neither and casts them as ‘disposable’. Just as unwanted furniture and empty boxes are left in the street for garbage pick-up, those who are unable to participate in consumerist class norms are viewed as unclean and -in turn- unworthy outcasts; victims of their corporeal existence. Unable to benefit from or participate in the ‘disruptive’ digital age, they make shelter out of cardboard and exist in the marginal cracks of exterior physical spaces.

This project was made possible with the cooperation and participation of UMBC Dance Department students.

2017

Performative video installation (projected on panels) with audio

Dimensions: 42” x 65” x 31”

Duration: 03:36 (loop)

ModBrut plays with the contemporary paradigm of physical mobility in a planned architectural environment – in this case, the university campus (University of Maryland, Baltimore County). As the body’s relationship to such space requires the practical flow of forward motion, I developed insertions of performative actions carried out by students and faculty that defied normative patterns of movement on the campus. Viewers of the installation saw “flow” subverted – though not physically interrupted – by these actions. Within the installation, there was physical disruption of the image created by projecting the video onto angular sheets of foam core protruding from the walls. The audio consisted of ethnographic observations recorded by several participants. Given the task of identifying their experiences of specific sites on campus, they reflected on their

2017 

Duration: 01:57

Single channel video

Dimensions variable

Using performative gestures with my body amidst modernist urban structures in downtown Baltimore.

ModMod (video Still)

I created a built installation architecture in a gallery space, that mimicked the darker aspects of modernist (Brutalist) architecture for the video projections of  this piece. 

The underside of US Highway 83 (Overpass) was -for several years a site of unsheltered people who set up encampments.  Chain-link fencing was installed in 2019, removing the encampment.

Boxed (still view of video, prior to projections on installation architecture)

Dance student Samantha Seigle generating performative gestures in preparation for video shoot.

ModMod (Video Still)