I’M SLEEPING
YEAR COMPLETED: 2018
SAIC MFA Thesis Show, Sullivan Galleries Chicago
Video Projection Installation, 9 Mins
Part of Davidson College’s Van Every/Smith Gallery’s permanent collection
‘I'm Sleeping’ is a video projection installation that explores the relationship between a mother and a daughter, separated by time and distance, mediated through a smartphone. The piece came about when I noticed a pattern emerge between myself and my mother after moving to Chicago. Whenever I would receive text messages, I would respond ‘I’m Sleeping’ as a form of deflection. A tool to deflect the barrage of love where I couldn’t handle or process that love while feeling so alone being away for the first time in my life. I noticed the correlation between the medium I was using to retain contact with her and its properties. The way a phone uses terminology like 'Snooze' when in choosing to delay time, I was enacting the same avoidance through text. The tool and its user connected.
The piece uses fluctuations in pacing and rhythm to dissolve any sense of a timeline or chronology - it’s an erratic sense of disconnect that’s intended to overwhelm the viewer, the way I was overwhelmed. ‘I’m Sad’ and ‘I’m Lonely’ are typed the way a text message would be, letter by letter, and then deleted and replaced with ‘I’m Sleeping’. This, combined with the overlaying of text above, visualizes my responses, and my reconsiderations - my thought process. I would hide my solitude in the guise of fatigue.
Special Thanks: Stephen Farrell, Bob Faust, Luna Goldberg, Anthony Elms, Dylan Gillah
SAIC MFA Thesis Show, Sullivan Galleries Chicago
Video Projection Installation, 9 Mins
Part of Davidson College’s Van Every/Smith Gallery’s permanent collection
‘I'm Sleeping’ is a video projection installation that explores the relationship between a mother and a daughter, separated by time and distance, mediated through a smartphone. The piece came about when I noticed a pattern emerge between myself and my mother after moving to Chicago. Whenever I would receive text messages, I would respond ‘I’m Sleeping’ as a form of deflection. A tool to deflect the barrage of love where I couldn’t handle or process that love while feeling so alone being away for the first time in my life. I noticed the correlation between the medium I was using to retain contact with her and its properties. The way a phone uses terminology like 'Snooze' when in choosing to delay time, I was enacting the same avoidance through text. The tool and its user connected.
The piece uses fluctuations in pacing and rhythm to dissolve any sense of a timeline or chronology - it’s an erratic sense of disconnect that’s intended to overwhelm the viewer, the way I was overwhelmed. ‘I’m Sad’ and ‘I’m Lonely’ are typed the way a text message would be, letter by letter, and then deleted and replaced with ‘I’m Sleeping’. This, combined with the overlaying of text above, visualizes my responses, and my reconsiderations - my thought process. I would hide my solitude in the guise of fatigue.
Special Thanks: Stephen Farrell, Bob Faust, Luna Goldberg, Anthony Elms, Dylan Gillah
