Experiments in art : digital : life

Venues applied

Abstract:
Thomas Csordas*  writes that “If embodiment is an existential condition in which the body is the subjective source or intersubjective ground of experience, then studies under the rubric of embodiment are not ‘about’ the body per se. Instead they are about culture and experience insofar as these can be understood from the standpoint of bodily being-in-the-world.”

Our collaborative work is built around “constructions” – long-term durational performances where we create and inhabit particular personas as a way of examining questions about our own personal, political, and cultural identities. We’re currently exploring how the objects of everyday experience – what we wear, eat, watch, read and surround ourselves with – create us and the interactions we have with others. By manipulating the collection of superficial signifiers that create visual impressions, we use our own bodies as experimental sites for performing the self.

From 2005-2008, we performed being: paul and kate, constructing ourselves as a scientist and a philosopher whose work focused on influencing personal identity through the isolation and control of fundamental living variables.  We’re currently working as Beauregard and Lily Sage, a construction that assumes the outward appearance of an American icon: the cowboy. Whereas the constructions Paul and Kate worked to reduce all indicators of identity to examine our relationship to personal objects as signifiers, Beau and Lily use specifically loaded symbols as a way of questioning our relationship with cultural and national identities, specifically the idea of  “American-ness.” For example, in our photographic series, Money Shots and Class Photos, we’ve inserted our images into a number of world institutions as a way of reflecting on America’s role in a global environment, in particular its perception and place within transnational power structures.

We propose the performance of a lecture that speaks simultaneously about our work and as our work. Using the fact that we are two people to interweave a personal and technical narrative that layers process and product in real time, we’ll construct our story as a way of confronting and playing with the intersections of the real and the performative in our everyday lives.