It's hard to say how my final project went, since I never got to see it. I don't think I have any great insight after "performing" my project than I did before I presented. But I do have things to say.
While preparing, I was worried that I wasn't engaging my body in this project as much as I had in previous projects. I thought that I needed to add something: to leave the room, or to rock back and forth on the floor or somehow have my body be as much in focus as my project. I'm glad I didn't do that. It defeats the purpose of my project. My body is present within the piece. To refer to Cyborg Manifesto, the computer screen, projector, word documents, screen shots, Excel spreadsheets, internet browser, are all just as much of an extension of my body as my toes are. In some ways, I am more in touch with the part of myself that exists within my computer than I am with the part of myself that exists within my toes. At the very least, I spend much more time with my "computer self" than my "toe self." And adding a separate physical component would have disengaged the body from the piece. I found that the most helpful thing was to let my body be completely engaged in the action through the two screens.
In a way, I see this piece in contrast to Kevin's second project. His project displayed his text through the words of a female computer voice, and created a projection compiled of screenshots in an attempt to separate himself from the the computer. I, alternately, attempted to demonstrate how everything within the computer is a part of myself.
Rather than robot-ifying or alienating, I attempted to humanized the action on screen. I think the best example of this would be when my reaction to the music I was listening to affected my work on the screen. While editing my freewrite, I came upon the "I might fall and I might be okay" part during Azelia Bank's "212." She started singing, "I guess that cunt getting eaten" and i started writing "I guess that cunt getting eaten" into my freewrite. When I lined this up with the audio track I compiled for the piece, I tried to make sure that the timing of the song the same during my performance as it was during my editing, to demonstrate that even though this screenshot was taken in the past, it is a live human reaction. This helped to humanize the actions happening on screen.
It is so easy to dehumanize; I see it every day. Dismissing, equating, alienating are very common verbs used to dehumanize. When I was watching Brendan's first piece, for example, it was easy for me to dismiss (and therefore dehumanize) the man leaning over the memorial, because I knew that the narrative being shoved down my throat was a contrived story put together by someone who has no idea what war is like. In my free-write I was tossing around the idea of constructing myself within other things: ex-boyfriends, school projects, my ability to type without using the backspace bar.
I've found that identifying myself as someone who exists beyond my construction in reference to other people is very difficult. This article addresses the "wives, sisters, daughters" rhetoric in relation to the Steubenville rape. It's the argument that asks the listener to empathize with a female victim because it "could be your wife, sister, or daughter." Well, Anne Theriault states in this article, this rhetoric has a dehumanizing effect:
"It defines women by their relationships to other people, rather than as people themselves. It says that women are only important when they are married to, have given birth to, or have been fathered by other people. It says that women are only important because of who they belong to."
In this project, I wanted to explore how to identify myself in relation to this sense of "belonging" -- whether that's to a person, an action, a project, or a computer. So I suppose my project turned out to be an exploration of humanizing my own identity through the lens of my laptop, the projector, final cut pro, Microsoft Expressions Encoder, VLC Media Player, Google Chrome, Gmail, Azealia Banks, Childish Gambino, K. Flay, Ludovico Eunadi, and Tumblr. I suppose I've realized that I would like to make art that will work to humanize, rather than highlighting dehumanization.
Rather than making art about pain, injustice, and harsh realities, I want to make art about pleasure, justice, and that reaches toward some sort of ideal reality. I'm a firm believer that any medium used should be used because you cannot make the piece with any other medium. Moving forward, I'd like to start playing with how different forms of media would be able to humanize people in very different ways. Of course, to do this, I have to constantly analyze the art, writing, and discourse around me that works to humanize or dehumanize (or, attempts to humanize but might dehumanize as a result) people's identities. I also need to look into breaking down this term itself some more. Often, the term "humanize" can be used or interpreted as a universalizing term, the kind that says, "that doesn't matter, because we're all human!" This erases histories and ignores identities. It's the same voice that says, "But really, everybody is a little bisexual!" Which ignores the realities, stories, and identities of those who are bisexual. When I make art that attempts to humanize, I need to be wary that I don't attempt to universalize, erasing histories and ignoring identities.
I need to begin by interrogating what it means to be human in these terms. I don't want to interrogate human in contrast to animals, plants, or machines, but rather the kind of human that other people treat as human. This human cannot be denied justice, rights, retribution, identity.
I would like to retract what I said in my second sentence. I gained a descent amount of insight after "performing" my piece. I just had to write through it to recognize it.
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