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Project Type: School Spring 2017 (solo)

Role: Artist, Designer, Developer

Assignment: This is my most recent project. The goal was to do a one hour performance on our campus, where we addressed the feelings of being 'unsafe' and 'safe'. We were encouraged to tie in one of three themes: gender identity, the refugee experience, or sexual violence. An Adafruit Circuit Playground had to be the key component in the performance.

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I was inspired by performance artists like Olivier de Sagazan and Coco Fusco. Particularly by words Fusco wrote in her article The Other History of Intercultural Performance. She wrote about being a woman of color; “Those are also the times when, even though I know I can get out of the cage, I can never quite escape.” It prompted me to think about my experience as a woman, a woman of color, but also as a fat woman of color. The cages and the keys those different identities present.

I used Arduino for my circuit playground. I thought it would be interesting if the device was used to represent the validation and disappoint of not feeling feminine in our society.

I also felt that tying in the aspect of social media was important and relevant right now. The desperation to get likes and the very real depression and insecurity that comes with failing to be conventionally beautiful.