Em

For my open work final performance, I wanted to incorporate my phone again. I decided to act out one of my biggest frustrations with the pandemic and consequently, working from home. I feel so incredibly distracted by my phone, once again! I wanted to show how frustrated I am with the distraction, so I taped it to the wall while I complete a full task, which was responding to applicant inquiries. With monotonous tasks I am even more easily distracted now. As my phone was on the wall, I was restraining it from myself, as is so hard for me to do as I work at home during the pandemic. I left it up for the whole task, until it was complete and recorded the whole thing. I did this as a final project for two reasons, I thought it showed my frustration and it was a way to physically take my distraction away from me, and I wanted to continue my theme with technology and the pandemic. I showed the before, process of taping the phone to the wall, and actually finishing the task in my performance, so I recorded the whole thing from my computer as I completed the work task. Once again, my biggest source of documentation was my phone which was something that I was not incorporating so I used my computer to record it. Luckily the way my home office is set up, I was able to show my taped up phone in the background the whole time which I thought was an effective viewpoint for my project. I honestly felt relieved and undistracted for the whole performance. This is something I should do more honestly as I work from home. Maybe it would help to have it wrapped in plastic wrap the whole day also, as I did in my previous project! The whole video is about 40 mins long, and I finished my task :)

Statement: The things our body and mind can do when trained is absolutely amazing.  For the past few months, I have seen amazing and touching performances through my classmates and got to learn more artists on this subject.  This is a dance that we also choreographed (I tried dancing and I looked like a big mommy blob, so I took myself out of the video, don’t worry I still love myself), wanting to show just calmness, feelings, just Cindy being Cindy, life goes on etc.  Let’s dance, just because we can, just because we are living, just because! 

Artist Statement: For the free work project I continued with the drag performance aspect. I feel like maybe its a push to consider it performance art since it is a highly edited and compiled video. I had a lot of fun with this project though from recording takes with multiple angles. I enjoy the process of clipping videos and creating, essentially, a music video. It is a fun way to add another element to my drag and be expressive. It feels like a good middle step to getting comfortable performing in person as well. I have really enjoyed having this semester to play, explore and practice with drag and take an artistic route to creating performances and engaging with others. 

Music: Gravity, The Infamous Stringdusters 

For this project I was having quite a hard time finding something to do and decided to take the route of having participants through technology. I did a series of poll stories on my Instagram that allowed my followers to dictate and create my look. From wig to outfit to makeup style I let other people make those choices for me and it was a fun way to have participants without physically being around others! I was hoping to do something a bit more extravagant but this idea fit best with my timing and availability and I am pleased with the outcome. After taking in the choices made by my peers I just made a short video on TikTok to have some kind of physical receipt that I followed the choices that were made for me!

This semester has been hard, I am unmotivated and one artist block after the other…at a certain point in my life when I was younger and would get overstimulated, anxious, depressed I would go for walks. Thats one technique that I’ve carried with me through my adulthood. Anytime Im feeling insecure, lonely, stressed, I put on my headphones and go for a walk. It takes me out of my head, I stop thinking about if my favorite pair of pants fit me or why i haven’t been able to get out of bed for the past three days and instead it forces me to feel fresh air, look out at the different architecture and just be. This is a timelapse of a glimpse into an hour long walk I went on. I feel grateful to live in Cap Hill theres so many cool houses and it’s very walking friendly. It’s nice for me to get outside and get some exercise but it’s even better for me to just get out of my head.