Trust Clinic Gallery

My thesis work culminates in a video piece titled Trust Clinic. Cyborgian & masked characters process the paradox of waste and excess in a non-linear 1980’s workout video melted with concepts of desertification and abundification on planet earth. Assembling text, found sound and video clips Trust Clinic poses a contradiction between forms of care for self, others, & atmosphere. The video and the installation as a whole is a site of amalgamated experiences- calling into question women’s relationship to technology, labor, and (em)power(men)(t?). One character wears a chastity belt made of rose gold i-phones, they are an ((un))locked desire matrix, the embodied oracle of possibility we all experience in our ‘hyper-notifed’ culture. We also meet the “attendant” a woman who harkens back to phone operators and other service worker jobs that employed women at the turn of the century. Lastly a character emerges from a ceremonial tent dancing on the green lawn until it turns dry and dead. Using both poetic and documentary forms, Trust Clinic processes felt/lived experience with metaphor. In the tension between reality and fantasy, characters and environments are constructed to act out dreams and anxieties present in the global psyche. This show on NAC also includes virtualized physical works including a 10 X 10 ‘ transparent flag, A ceramic rose gold i-Phone chastity belt and the leather tent with a red interior seen in the video. Big thanks to Miss Sammie Veeler for helping me generate a virtual version of my thesis show!

A typical open warehouse gallery space with a central pillar. You spawn facing a Trinitron CRT angled upward and five white plaster masks fanned out in front. On the right side is a leather tent with a red velvet interior. In the distance, a giant boulder with a big screen blocks the way. Beyond the central pillar, an orange flag is barely visible. When you approach the flag, you find that behind it another large boulder with an inset screen blocks the way. Each screen is playing the same film.