Holeness
2016
2016
It’s not everyday you can dig a hole and call it art. Curiously, art school has been taking me back to my roots and encouraging me to dig harder, deeper, longer.
Holes have punctuated my life for some time now. After helping my family with big backyard projects that required everyone out working with a shovel in hand, I grew an affection for the labor of unearthing. Perhaps I liked the work because it engaged my whole body and asked nothing of mind -- the usual slave. There’s a satisfaction to sore muscles and sound sleep after a long day of digging. When we ran out of projects, I ventured off into the woods behind our house to find some sacred ground. I would go out there after school to channel any frustration into the dirt and make my emptiness until I tired and sunk down into the earth’s embrace.
I thought my digging a hole would not only make for a provocative performance piece but also help me to ground myself once again as I did years ago. This video performance speaks to some notion of searching for wholeness in hollowness -- making space to breathe when every minute of life is so packed there is no time and space to do so.
The audio starts well before the visual because I wanted to introduce the viewer to the performer’s voice and allow time to truly take in the thread of words without distraction--before they blend together in repetition. The audio begins to overlap as she becomes more immersed in her task. By layering the audio I was able to include various emotions that the performer passes through over one visual.
As the video and the hole progress, the frame closes in our performer, emphasizing her narrowing focus and the channeling of all her thoughts, emotions, and energy into the ground. She struggles to balance on the island as it crumbles beneath her and she digs it away. This shows the impossibility of staying in one place preserved forever and illustrates the fear -- and inevitability -- of undermining oneself.
Holes have punctuated my life for some time now. After helping my family with big backyard projects that required everyone out working with a shovel in hand, I grew an affection for the labor of unearthing. Perhaps I liked the work because it engaged my whole body and asked nothing of mind -- the usual slave. There’s a satisfaction to sore muscles and sound sleep after a long day of digging. When we ran out of projects, I ventured off into the woods behind our house to find some sacred ground. I would go out there after school to channel any frustration into the dirt and make my emptiness until I tired and sunk down into the earth’s embrace.
I thought my digging a hole would not only make for a provocative performance piece but also help me to ground myself once again as I did years ago. This video performance speaks to some notion of searching for wholeness in hollowness -- making space to breathe when every minute of life is so packed there is no time and space to do so.
The audio starts well before the visual because I wanted to introduce the viewer to the performer’s voice and allow time to truly take in the thread of words without distraction--before they blend together in repetition. The audio begins to overlap as she becomes more immersed in her task. By layering the audio I was able to include various emotions that the performer passes through over one visual.
As the video and the hole progress, the frame closes in our performer, emphasizing her narrowing focus and the channeling of all her thoughts, emotions, and energy into the ground. She struggles to balance on the island as it crumbles beneath her and she digs it away. This shows the impossibility of staying in one place preserved forever and illustrates the fear -- and inevitability -- of undermining oneself.