Alexa’s Performance Piece

 When she was recording, I sit very close to the camera, I couldn’t control myself thinking whether I will be in the frame and I tried to avoid that. The camera raises our attention to the way we performance ourselves in everyday life. Although this may not be the main theme of the piece, but many of her works do capture the moment when people are exposed in front of camera. In my notes, there is an interesting question we asked in the class: when does the performance start? When she projected the video and sit in front of the screening, she was making the performance. But before that, did she do the same thing as she showed in the video? The line between daily life and performance is blurred. Such a “performance” is going on everyday in everyone’s mind. Just like the camera drive my attention to being aware of my behavior, the whole piece reveals subconscious thoughts going through our mind. It fit so well when her thoughts are projected to other people’s faces.

I also like the way the camera was set up; the position provides an angle and distance that makes it (she) being disconnected to the group.  The disengagement enhances the gap between the world outside and the subconscious world, also makes it looks like a surveillance camera, observing human behavior without involving with that. When she was sitting in front of the screen and observing the past (on the screen), I can’t stop asking is it a naked eye looking at the past now or is it seen from a camera’s eye’s point of view. Is the past being reproduced through the camera or by the performance that involves a human body?

The overlapping of multiple tracks in the audio successfully reproduced the subconscious thinking process. There are also many possibilities to present it in different ways. In my experience, when I think of something, I will be distracted by something else for a while and probably go back to the original thoughts, or maybe I will go along with the new thoughts and old ideas will fade away or sometimes I don’t even think about any thing and the time I realize it I will find that I forget what I was thinking just now. All these could be possibilities to present this piece or some ideas for future work. Likewise, maybe there are some other ways to visualize or reproduce the stage when we think, such as use body movement to create certain energy to type words on the screen instead of using audio. This is just a random thought came out of my mind. I think randomness can also be a point to explore this topic, because it is hard to control what we think, and how thoughts are developed in the subconscious level. This is why this piece is so persuasive and familiar to us.

Relating to her previous works, her female voice adds a layer of gender critique on it. In the voice over, she talks about grooming her hair when she is anxious. I ‘d like to connect that to Silvia’s make-up series, which also contains several performance pieces in it. The idea of make up is a way to disguise in the society as a female by masking and beautifying facial expressions. What Alexa’s voices points out here is more related to body language, but they both speak to female’s reaction to social anxiety or maybe the gap between self expectation and their social profiles. I think they both succeed in critiquing on this issue by using their female bodies or voices as artists.