You may laugh and say, "Not here. Too personal, too hungry, no business, too close," but even miracles need a witness.
2010
Performance and installation.
Visitors are admitted one at a time and invited to lie down on a bed and listen while the artist, hidden behind a curtain, reads the transcripts from recorded conversations with her lover.
Excerpt of transcript:
I think it’s the most important thing to me about recording this and knowing that it’s going to be out in the world…I know that I’ve definitely received more intense pain from you but also a sort of, I don’t know, a completely unprecedented sense of tenderness and I think that’s really important to preserve and also to make visible in a way. And maybe this is something I’m grappling with too, but I’m trying to understand my relationship to pain, and what I can see, what it allows me to see and knowing that you can offer me both of those things and knowing that it feels completely healthy and grounded, I think it’s not something people would expected, I mean, people outside of the scene, that there’s a way to inflict pain in a really loving manner.
I think that’s whole idea of catharsis too. We are as human beings designed to feel pain, we’re designed to experience pain and there’s that kind of animal need for the pain, but also to inflict pain. That’s how it feels to me sometimes, that there’s this wolfish part of me that wants to be running through the streets pillaging, and that’s not who I am and not how I live my life, but there’s a part of me that wants that, I think it’s an instinctive desire and I think sometimes in my love for you, there’s a part of me that wants to devour you and I think letting that part of me meet the part of you that’s wanting to be devoured and wanting to be hurt and wanting to feel those sensations and to go through this really cathartic thing.. So I’m showing you the scariest part of me, and you’re being your most vulnerable in that same moment, and to come from that and then to be able to take care of each other through that, and for me to be able to make you feel really good and kind of nurse you back from the tears, there’s something really powerfully connecting in that and also it really clears the emotional circuit. It just gets a lot out.
Performance and installation.
Visitors are admitted one at a time and invited to lie down on a bed and listen while the artist, hidden behind a curtain, reads the transcripts from recorded conversations with her lover.
Excerpt of transcript:
I think it’s the most important thing to me about recording this and knowing that it’s going to be out in the world…I know that I’ve definitely received more intense pain from you but also a sort of, I don’t know, a completely unprecedented sense of tenderness and I think that’s really important to preserve and also to make visible in a way. And maybe this is something I’m grappling with too, but I’m trying to understand my relationship to pain, and what I can see, what it allows me to see and knowing that you can offer me both of those things and knowing that it feels completely healthy and grounded, I think it’s not something people would expected, I mean, people outside of the scene, that there’s a way to inflict pain in a really loving manner.
I think that’s whole idea of catharsis too. We are as human beings designed to feel pain, we’re designed to experience pain and there’s that kind of animal need for the pain, but also to inflict pain. That’s how it feels to me sometimes, that there’s this wolfish part of me that wants to be running through the streets pillaging, and that’s not who I am and not how I live my life, but there’s a part of me that wants that, I think it’s an instinctive desire and I think sometimes in my love for you, there’s a part of me that wants to devour you and I think letting that part of me meet the part of you that’s wanting to be devoured and wanting to be hurt and wanting to feel those sensations and to go through this really cathartic thing.. So I’m showing you the scariest part of me, and you’re being your most vulnerable in that same moment, and to come from that and then to be able to take care of each other through that, and for me to be able to make you feel really good and kind of nurse you back from the tears, there’s something really powerfully connecting in that and also it really clears the emotional circuit. It just gets a lot out.
