I’m Sleeping at Sullivan Galleries Chicago
I’m Sleeping, 2018
Video Projection Installation, 9 Min
The smartphone became my barrier after moving to Chicago, a thin glass shield between my mother and me. I noticed a pattern emerging: "I'm sleeping" as my default reply. The words became my script, a digital version of pressing snooze on emotions I couldn't process.
This video installation captures that fractured communication. The rhythm is deliberately off kilter, breaking from any sense of narrative time, mirroring how dislocated I felt. You see text bubbles forming then dissolving: "I'm sad" typed then erased, "I'm lonely" deleted before sending, always replaced with that same deflection: "I'm sleeping."
It's about the performance of okayness. How we craft these small linguistic retreats when feeling too much or nothing at all. The projection makes visible that constant tension between wanting connection and needing distance. Between the urge to be truly seen and disappear.
GRADUATE SAIC TEAM: Stephen Farrell, BJ Krivanek, Luna Goldberg, Anthony Elms
ARTIST ADVISORS: Bob Faust, Dylan Gillah
DONE AT: Art Institute of Chicago
ROLE: Artist
MEDIUM: Digital, Gallery
LINKS: Psychology 101 Culture Points: Connecting Social Science to the Arts [Writing by Nora Solmon]