Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Independent Project

Alright, this is my third attempt at submitting an update. Let's see how it goes:

I am utilizing video and performance art in this project, which i shall submit in tandem during the opening and closing project exhibitions. I am combining these two forms in order to create a visual take on an internal monologue, which has become a pseudo-dialogue. I will be interacting in real-time with an image of myself that I have prerecorded. In preparation for this project, I have written a script.

The performance references a number of topics, including the recent contraception-mandate, the associated Sandra Fluke/ Rush Limbaugh scandal, and blowjob classes, respectively. Additionally, including myself in the work has made it, therefore, reflexive, and adds a dimension of documentary-style subjectiveness that itself comments upon how a "Jane Doe" relates to the aforementioned issues. The central theme of this project is modern feminism, however, it highlights the ambiguity of such a concept.

Like, i said, there will be two performances. Otherwise, there will be no running exhibit in the gallery. My materials include a monitor, dvd player OR my own computer and connection cables, and a ceiling-mounted light source.

Here is a copy of my script!
-----
Stage directions are in italics. The within-the-monitor character, "I," is written in bold. External character, "O," is written plainly.
-----



Pre-show speech: I should like that any among you that calls yourself male and and willing to be objectified, stand right here, please. I'm going to make eyes at you during my show. Sometimes I may just really need to look out there and lock eyes with someone with whom has a contractual obligation to look at me, too.
***************


Oh my god. That's cute.
Television turns on. I appear to be staring at the same distant spot.
/he's cute.
Don't.
What!
You're going to make us do something stupid.
I shrugs aggressively and reaches off-screen to pick up a boombox, and presses Play
Insert clip of Inside of You (Hoobastank, 2:09-2:19)
I triumphantly smirks and starts wiggling in time to the beat.
O looks mortified and paralyzed with fear. Flails helplessly. The song cuts off--
OHMYGOD! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!
I'm sorry okay! Nothing in my life has ever prepared me for this moment!
O sighs, walks closer toward the monitor, and sits down heavily, and places her head between her knees.
We're cool.
O slowly raises her head and has a dazed and wondrous expression. There is silence from the monitor as I completes some nervous gesture like, like rubbing her hair.
I know how you can get boys to like you. Blowjobs. And good teeth. But not together.
That's pretty fucked up.
Yeah, but you don't have to like I cups the air near her mouth and awkwardly pantomimes weiner-wanking all the time. You just have to give one really fantastic blowjob to one self-promoting guy. Ideally he will tell as many people as possible, and then BOOM your blowjobs become legendary. Then you can rest of you laurels.
Yeah dude, sucking male-penis seems totally natural.
Yeah and just in case, you can take a blowjob class. I don't think there's a lab fee, but you have to bring your own banana.
How many credits is it?
Three.
Long Pause.
I think I'd rather, um, give my boyfriend a blowjob. Like, when I get one.
That's putting the cart before the horse, dear.
No, I mean, whatever. I'm just saying that I don't want everybody to believe that I give good blowjobs or that, in fact, I got an A in blowjobs.
Woah, hey, IF you get an A--
I'd rather artfully blow my loving tender boyfriend. And I don't have any room in my tight, collegiate budget for class bananas.
Yeah dude being a student is expensive. I feel like someone should address the issue of the rising cost of education versus minimum wage and the cost of living because like, I'm barely getting by.
It's totally weird that you said that.
O excitedly turns to face the monitor, looking slightly upwards at it.
There was a girl named Sandra Fluke who testified before Congress that there should be some mandate for insurance coverage of contraceptives. She was supportive of a blanket-mandate that would cause private secular and non-secular institutions to provide insurance for their employees that included access to free birth control.
It wouldn't be free. Insurance companies would just adjust the annual premium to cover it. And that still wouldn't be free, because employees or students or whatever have to pay for their insurance by either having it deducted from their paycheck or included in their tuition. But, whatever, I like it, go on.
I mean, it caused a stir among those who think that such a move interferes with religious freedom. Like, if a Catholic doesn't agree with contraception, they don't want to be forced to provide it. Those whole thing boiled down to a War on Religion versus a War on Women.
Lol like the War on Drugs? Do you think it's hard to suck cock?
O seems caught off guard.
I dunno, I mean, my tongue is a pretty sensitive organ, and it feels comfortable in there.
Beat
They called her a slut.
Who?
O gestures impatiently with her arms. I looks defensive and tries to continue.
I mean--
Emphatically: They! Rush Limbaugh and his pitchfork-wielding followers, teenage boys who don't know any better, teenage girls who felt an implacable pang of jealousy, then revulsion at their own lowliness, their middle-aged parents who never waited until marriage to have sex, and the stalwartly faithful who did: the mob just under the surface of our modern discourse that hates women. They're not just men anymore.
They both look at each other, and speak in unison, slowly: Nothing in my life has ever prepared me for this moment.
Sperm-burping gutter slut.
Nasty, disease-ridden, plodding uterus.
A prostitute-slutbag juice-receptacle.
I'm not against the freedom of speech. I'm not supportive on internet censorship. Fuck!
O's voice hitches.
Condoms are free.
I brings a banana into the shot, and appears to be trying to put a condom on it with her mouth, while O continues.
They said contraception is a woman's responsibility, but what they meant was it's a woman's responsibility to keep her legs closed. They said that to a woman who was not only an adult, but attending college full-time. But she's also a slut. Who isn't a slut?
O sees I with the banana.
Will you fucking stop that!
Long pause. O seems struck dumb, with a growing look of horror on her face.
It's you! Trying to please everybody!
O walks up to the monitor and pounds her palm flat against it, over I's hand. I appears startled and drops the banana.
Well, you can't please everybody, because even when you're on your way up, somebody's going to call you a slut, sometime. That doesn't mean you have to earn it.
O pulls her hand off the screen, faces audience.
Just. Get out of there
O exits (wherever available). Recording ends, monitor blacks out.