Experiments in art : digital : life

A Point of MergingIf we accept the notion that the concept of “self” is stabilized by its pairing with “other”, what happens when we begin to let go of both self and other by embracing both?To illustrate this “releasing embrace” this paper investigates the performance, Inscribing Digital Memory 2, a work both performed and witnessed while existing in a space specifically constructed to contain numerous purported opposites. In IDM2, this was accomplished primarily by 1) the assignment of equivalent roles within the performance and 2) the performance of identical, repetitive actions for the duration. Through this double process of reduction (of personal difference) and repetition (of bodily movement), the performers were able to objectify themselves to produce the physical representation of a subjective experience.The idea of “binary pairs” and the limits they set on are of primary significance in this work. On its surface, IDM2 concerned itself with examining the passing down and storage of personal memory in a singularly reductive form: binary code. However, on a deeper level, the performance (and the concerns driving it), used the rudimentary tool that is “binary code” to investigate the representation, significance, and repercussions of the application of binary pairs to the understanding and ordering of daily life.This paper investigates our ability to use the “binary structures that appear as the language of universal rationality”[1] to help eliminate the implied hierarchy of binary pairs. In IDM2, the non-privileged cycling of the energy of apparent opposites created something that allowed self and other to disappear, even if only briefly, from the world of the binary.

[1] Judith Butler, “Gender Trouble,” 1990.