3 performers stand, sit, and lie in a wooden structure that outlines the dimension of a domestic interior space.
The structure has no walls and stands in a parking lot on a pink carpet.
The movement of 3 remote-controlled objects dictates the performer’s movement.
A recliner, a ceiling fan, and a pair of electric blinds.
The performers control the objects with the remote controls.
A projection in the background shows animated virtual objects disintegrating and integrating in short intervals.
A voice-over speaks a collage of various local radio advertisements.
The performers wear lavalier microphones through which their bodily expressions become audible.
Their humming, groaning, and twittering form a choir, occasionally overshadowing the audio track of the advertisement clips.
The performance lasts 20 minutes.
excerpt from review published at the Performance Museum Los Angeles July 3rd 2024 by Andrew Mc Neely
“Linda Franke’s Proof of Life, a performance held in conjunction with her solo show, Utility Fatigue, called to mind the perennial figure of the automaton in art, specifically in relation to society’s rapid descent into burnout culture – a landscape where chronic stress and attention bifurcation has normalized mass exhaustion and radically attenuated our capacity for introspection. For twenty-five minutes, three performers moaned, snored, and uttered all manner of bodily noises while a voiceover satirically recited banal advertisements marketing everything from cash offers for plasma to dental implants. ”
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