Preface:
I’m still quite stuck on what direction to take with my thesis project. This has been a common occurrence throughout my work in IMA – trying to determine what themes or topics to address with what we’ve learned – and even though I’m trying to work through it, it still presents a substantial impediment to my work.

I guess part of the problem is trying to figure out what I feel qualified to address, not just in terms of my technical ability, but also my prior experience. Even though I have a substantial amount of experience in both performance and production in the Arts and Entertainment industry, part of the reason I took on this curriculum was to open up the possibility of pivoting away from the industry, while still remaining competitive (dare to say – even innovative?) in my field until I’m ready to move on to the next stage of my career. Yes, it smacks of trying to have my cake and eat it too, but I don’t see me re-inventing myself as an interactive media artist right out of the gate, and until then, I feel like I should play to my strengths – especially with my thesis.

While my previous work in IMA has generally been well-received, I’ve struggled with some of it – mostly coding and design, as well as with trying to incorporate what I’ve learned here to art and activism, so I’m hesitant to take on something that’s totally out of my wheelhouse.

Having Andrew as an advisor and resource has helped me to shift my focus, though. The fact that he has practical experience applying the concepts and technology of interactive media to theater and performance is a huge plus, and his body of work shows that there’s clearly a place for it in the performing arts. So far I haven’t really drawn on my own performance and production background in any of my work in IMA, and I feel like I’d be remiss in completely ignoring it any longer.

Some project ideas:

  • A few years back, in my acting days, I performed in a Karel Čapek play called The White Plague, as part of an off-off-Bway theatre festival protesting the 2004 Republican National Convention coming to NY (Madison Square Garden, no less.) Briefly, the play takes place in a nation perilously close to war, when a global pandemic, similar to leprosy or the bubonic plague, begins killing the over-45 population. A dictator known as the Marshal sees it as an opportunity to begin invading other nations. A pacifist doctor discovers a cure, but withholds it from the world unless all governments declare world peace. Until then, he offers treatment only to the poor. The play goes on in a few different directions, but I saw the obvious parallel to our current predicament and even though we’re ostensibly close to turning the corner now that multiple vaccines have become available, the similarities to today’s politicization of the virus and issues regarding whom COVID has affected seemed like an interesting opportunity to explore. How I would tie it to our IMA studies, however, remains to be seen.
  • Another idea I’ve been mulling over, one I’ve been kicking around for a few years in fact, is an adaptation of Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck set to the music of Radiohead’s seminal 1997 album OK Computer. I feel like the album’s themes of isolation and alienation and paranoia (due mostly to technology’s effect on society) echo the mental deterioration of Buchner’s protagonist, who is degraded by his military superiors; by society, for fathering an illegitimate child; and by the child’s mother for her waning affection and ensuing infidelity. He subjects himself to medical experiments in order to support his family, but they only serve to further his decline. Eventually he confronts her lover and is beaten and humiliated, so he kills her in a fit of jealous rage. The play was never finished, and has been open to much interpretation over the years, but it’s subject – a working-class tragic hero who’s crushed by the circumstances of his life and the world around him – continues to touch a nerve, and has felt relevant to people since it was written almost 200 years ago.

Again, exactly how to integrate the work we’ve done in IMA still eludes me, but I do feel compelled to circle back to performance or production, (even a live installation with a some kind of narrative..?) if only so I don’t feel like I’m at such a disadvantage.

Probably shouldn’t be my prime motivator here, but that’s were I’m at.