thePEEPshow, 2024 First iteration, without sound
Constructed from a repurposed HO scale train layout and fabricated mountains, thePEEPshow reflects on the voyeuristic relationship between art and the female body, and trains our eyes toward the seduction of the forbidden. With a nod to Duchamp’s dark, humorous assemblage Étant donnés and the dismembered and deconstructed part-objects of Louise Bourgeois’ sculptures, thePEEPshow employs looped video sequences of vocal folds, frenzied flies, and rapid hand movements as a means to reflect upon organs, artifice, and desire while reducing them to elemental forms.
In Duchamp’s Étant donnés, the strange mannequin-like figure of a woman, lying on a bed of sticks, leaves, and hay, reminiscent of a gruesome murder scene, has no feet to carry her away, no face, and no mouth with which to speak. Her only visible hand is outstretched and holds a lamp meant not for her, but to light the way for someone else. She has no agency and nothing to identify her beyond the ultimate objectification, a big reductivist display of a hairless vulva and breasts.
Videos:
VIBRATE! While studying vocal fold pathology, I was mesmerized by the slow wave-motion of vibrating vocal folds caught on endoscopic videos. The similarity between the undulating vocal folds and vaginas goes beyond the visual, and holds a parallel commentary between two organs integral to our most creative acts: language and birth.
LET’S EAT! Look for the dance of the three graces as you watch a ballet of frenzied flies feeding on a rotting carcass.
DON’T STOP: an act of frenetic repetitive raw energy. As a speech pathologist, I often reenact stimming patterns (hand flapping, rocking, etc.) of autistic clients to better understand the sensory input the stimming gives them. Here I’ve reenacted one young client’s reinforcer of a red ribbon on a stick with her accompanying hand movements. Her stimming seemingly parallels the power and raw beauty of the flies’ frenzy.
CARTOON IN A CAVE. A deconstruction of how art is presented, formalized, and perceived through a classical proscenium arch, a framed art piece, and even 2 sleazy peepholes.
*thePEEPshow premiered in March 2024 in the Women on the Verge show, at the Westbeth Gallery in Manhattan.
