a r c h i v e   o f   p e r f o r m a n c e   1 : T h e   m e d i u m   i s   t h e   M e d i u m

the seance looked exquisite here, projected large, and i'd recorded my heartbeats and played them over the stereo in a loop. along with a ring of votive candles encircling our "stage", and an "altar" fashioned by a pair of groundsquirrel figurines made by Mariko during the previous residency, one holding incense, the mood was strong.

sonya and i played the role of facilitators, referring questions to the chatterbot, the seance medium. my experience with the eeg artists was intimate, as in their performances they inevitably confronted themselves, through sustained eye contact and the observation of their brainwaves.

as for our sense of the web audience, it was strong. the yellow globes, each of which represented a unique IP number, danced all night, growing in number suddenly when the performance officially began at 9:30. and the gold glow, which grew in size as the audience grew, glowed bigger than we'd ever seen it. we had a real sense of the audience's attention affecting the performance image, and in all there were 60 unique IP numbers which logged on over the course of the evening.

-- E Hartzell

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