material body 01 + pulse

This process is a glimpse into a group of non-fictitious cyborgs participating in a contemporary apocalypse of failures, life savers, and fissures. In this world - my AWK world made real - the apocalypse we are waiting for has already begun and the site of the performance is a macerating multi-layered poem of survival strategies.

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The term "cyborg" is short for cybernetic organism and is typically understood as a singular entity that hosts both organic and machine parts. Often, cyborg studies trickle into binary material distinctions of the 'organic' and 'machine' parts. Cyborgs are techno-organic trans-human bionic beings. I refuse popular notions of machines being industrial devices that plug-in and organic matter as being pure, unrefined, or untouched. "Material Body 01 + Pulse" is a collection of live performances, digital archives, material studies, and video art all highlighting the intersectional queer exploitation of the 'organic v. machine' fallacy in order to interrogate the machines of social and political systems we are indoctrinated within, the advanced technologies of live beings and ghosts, and the site of the quantum glitch is a utopia toward euphoric pleasure.

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The work is dance choreography and mediated digital + analog intervention through interactive sets, costumes, and video. This work is a live performance; and, a collection of essays and poems; film; visual art; and photography. The movement technologies include contemporary dance phrasing via hybridized aesthetics from postmodern, street styles, contact, and floorwork techniques. Media co-intervention includes projection design, videography and experimental editing along with analog technologies of interactive scenic and costume elements. Composed visual aesthetics include digital fantasy, 8-bit early internet, gay cowboys, stubborn punk D.I.Y., chromatic aberration, and glitch.

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Collaborators include dance artists Bree Breeden, Emilia Bruno, Christina Collins, Brit Falcon, Kaela "Kae" Lawrence and designers Tim Kelly (media), Mike Riggs (lighting), Shartoya R. Jn. Baptiste (scenic), and Becca Janey (costumes) along with composers Lily Gelfand and Peter Pattengill. Research collaborators include dance artists Ryan Smith and Javi Padilla and installation artist Dan Ortiz Leizman.

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Reach out if you would like to discuss commissioning this work, this body of research, or workshops aligned with the material.

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