Inheriting the Void is a new performance, installation, and sound collaboration based on the last three years of caring for my mother and her rapid onset of dementia. I use different modes of creation (performance, video projections on multiple surfaces, green screen animation, prop-objects, and costumes) to explore the connections between dementia, our climate crisis, and the emergence of Artificial Intelligence. AI is a phenomenon that threatens the meaning in stories, memory, and information, as well as requires great amounts of energy and resources to maintain it. It is a reflection of current social and environmental derangement, delusion, and dementia.
In in June 2024 the project received an Opportunity Grant from Arts Foundation of Souther Arizona to develop the work at Northern Sustainable Futures Artist Residency, Moskosel, Sweden. During this time I collaborated with musician Sean Peter Rogers to create a unique musical score and to record video footage.
Currently, I am developing a “narrative” in an abstract space where multiple themes intersect: Caring for my “Moma Bear” with dementia; a book I found in a thrift store, “The Last Species,” that includes the extinction of the Mexican Grizzly Bear, which occurred in a place and time just before I was born; a bear costume I made in 2005 for a show about being young and the power of imagination; a ventriloquist who speaks on behalf of lost, altered, and algorithmic memories; and the return to dirt, decomposition, seeds, and tiny new flowers. Working with green screen and gauze-projected animations the work is slowly taking the form of a live performance.
