ELECTRIC

GODS

PERFORMANCE

This project arouse out of my desire to subvert and compromise responsibility with my own body.  In the spirit of gender studies, I wanted to liberate my body not only from the responsibility and repressive nature of gender, but from the responsibility of life and self-preservation.  I wanted to demonstrate the meaning of personal responsibility in a modern context and stretch that idea to encompass other individuals, willingly or not, and somehow literally place my life in the hands of others.  This was an attempt to demonstrate this idea of shared responsibility in the wake of globalization, and create one entity, united by the natural and the electric.

Setting up a pulley system, I sat in a large tub of water with an active microwave dangling from an extension chord over the pool.  The audience was to hold onto the extension chord.  If someone was to let go of the chord, the microwave would have fallen into the tub, electrocuting me.  The audience was read a notice before participating in the performance. 

There was a general rush to enter the performance room, and at times several people were participating and working together to support the weight of the microwave.  Although this was not my intention, I believe the shared experience was complementary to the ideas I was trying to express.