Tag: 2005

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Yes Species

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Yes Species is a 20-minute performative tableau with video projection that imagines the meeting of three philosophers performing gender differently in a forest clearing: a live DJ mixing recorded vocalizations; a second performer standing in vats of red and green ink, blowing into vellum text balloons; and a third manipulating scrolls of text and dispersing copies of the Yes Species book with freshly-imprinted covers. First developed for 1-0-1 Intersex: The two gendered system as a Human Rights Violation at Berlin’s NGBK Gallery, The work explores both the performativity of gender as theorized by Judith Butler, and the hope that “things can be thought differently” as Luce Irigaray has suggested.

  • 1-0-1 Intersex: The two gendered system as a Human Rights Violation, Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (NGBK), Berlin, June 17, 2005 (catalog)
  • Cyberfem. Feminisms on the Electronic Landscape, Espai d’art contemporani de Castelló (EACC), Spain, October 20, 2006

Yes Species is documented on the subRosa “Selected Works” DVD. This project has its own web site, where you can download the Yes Species book.  Additional images here.

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Can You See Us Now? ¿Ya Nos Pueden Ver?

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This major, year-long subRosa project for The Interventionists, mapped the intersections of women’s material and affective labor in cultures of production in North Adams, MA, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and investigated the similarities and differences of economic, cultural and every-day life effects of the outsourcing of labor and globalization on these towns and on their local female labor force. Large, aerial wall maps of North Adams and Ciudad Juárez featured oversized map pins denoting “points of view,” and flanked a “forensic floor” that concealed objects, texts, and clues beneath loose boards. Visitors were encouraged to discover connections between the aerial maps, the contents beneath the floor, and a third printed “road map” distributed in the space. Also displayed were five posters by contemporary Mexican artists, expressing concern and outrage about the continuing murder and disappearance of women in Ciudad Juárez.*

The “Clothing Tag Map,” a separate part of this project—displayed in the foyer of the Museum—allowed visitors to cut the tags off their clothing and pin them to a Dymaxion world map, according to the location where each garment was manufactured. Thus visitors actively explored, and demonstrated their own participation and complicity in globalized labor conditions.

  • The Interventionists: Art in the Social Sphere, curated by Nato Thompson, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, May 2004–March 2005 (catalog, link).
  • Thought Crimes: The Art of Subversion [clothing tag map only], curated by Diane Barber, Diverse Works, Houston, TX, April 1–May 28, 2005.

* Can You See Us Now has its own web site.

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U-Gen-A-Chix

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Originally staged inside the student center of a large public university, U-Gen-A-Chix engaged students directly in critical conversations about eugenics as it relates to contemporary genetic engineering of humans, animals, and plants. Tandem performance booths were set up in a high-traffic area: one dispensing information on human egg donation and Assisted Reproductive Technologies, and the other offering taste tests of chicken-flavored GMO biscuits. After taste-testing the biscuit, students gave live video interviews about their willingness to eat genetically engineered foods if they enhanced energy performance during exams, and offered their opinions about the widespread use of GMOs, and related biological and social eugenic tendencies. (Note: This performance has been re-staged under several different titles, with variations in the set-up, emphasis, and audience participation in each case).

  • “U-Gen-A-Chix,” YOUGenics2: Exploring the Social Implications of Genetic Technologies, Southwest Missouri State University, Springfield, Oct. 2, 2003.
  • “Express Choice,” Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, November 7, 2005.
  • “U-Gen-A-Chix,” Raw Symbiosis: Animals_Nature_Culture, 14th International Festival of Contemporary Arts—City of Women, Galerija Skuc, Ljubljana, Slovenia, October 13, 2008 (catalog).

Download the Cultures of Eugenics booklet from our refugia web space.

The earliest version of this performance—“US Grade AAA Premium Eggs,” Bowling Green State University, Ohio, April, 2002—did not include the biscuit-tasting activity, but it did feature its own web site.

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International Markets of Flesh (IMF)

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An audience-participatory performance and collective mapping of the global trafficking in human organs and tissues, International Markets of Flesh [IMF] first took place on the altar of a 17th century converted convent church. Through participatory activities, demonstrations,  & manipulation of life-size organ sculptures, the audience learned about the growing international demand for transplantable organs and tissues, and the political, social, and medical consequences these demands create. Participants wrote personal stories and rumors about organ harvesting and trade on a large Dymaxion World Map, and affixed organ stickers. The visual accumulation of facts, fiction, and testimony effectively demonstrated the dominant flows of the flesh-market worldwide—with demand coming from the North/West and supply coming from the South/East. Performers and audience also discussed changing ideas about the value of human life in the age of genetically engineered, globally distributed, and patented human body parts, filled in a form estimating the net worth of their body parts and labor, and received a Certificate of Flesh Worth.

  • XI International Performance Art Festival: Out of Focus, ExTeresa Arte Actual, Mexico City, July 11, 2003.
  • Arte Nuevo InteractivA’05, Patio Central del Centro Cultural Olimpio, Mérida,Yucatan, Mexico, June 25, 2005.
  • A Studio of Their Own : The Legacy of the Fresno Feminist Experiment, 1970, Conley Art Gallery, CSU Fresno, CA,  Aug. 26-Oct. 11, 2009.

*Read about IMF in the Frakcija Performing Arts Journal and download the Flesh Worth Form.