If I could take me from that room, I would never give me back (2024)
3-Channel Video, extension cords, power strips, fishing line, lightbulbs, medical tape
Utah Museum of Contemporary Art
July 5 - October 19, 2024
Video, Sculpture, Concept: Kym McDaniel
Design & Production Assistance: Dusty Prebble
Technical Assistance: Jeff Griffin
Influenced by my research in Crip Theory (an interdisciplinary field that connects Disability Studies and Queer Theory) as well as my embodiment as a disabled dancer, this installation uses recycled materials as objects with a new functionality, questioning the performance of everyday objects and are bodies.
The 3-channel video leading viewers into the space uses thermal printed images, a photographic technique where images are printed with heat and fade after exposure to light and time. I transferred the thermal images to digital video, then burned the video onto VHS tapes. The VHS tapes will play and rewind continuously throughout the duration of the exhibit. This reverse-process was improvisational as I did not know if the images on the tape would eventually fade, disappear, or corrode over time, much like my relationships with embodied trauma, pain, and memory.
Inside the exhibit, salvaged extension cords and power strips form a structure that branches, twists, and grows from a center source. Suspended from the ceiling, the cords become tangled neurons, limbs stretching, or plants heliotropically reaching for the sun. The structure references enmeshment and anarchy, and the cords connect back to one power strip which acts as a body of knowledge, information - and ultimately - power.
The audience was encouraged play and interact with the various lights in the space, turning them on and off and experimenting with what cords held electricity.
Thank you Cecelia Condit, B Charles, Dusty Prebble, Merel Noorlander, Sammy Cunningham, Missy Weeks, Abbey Young, Michael Callahan, Hannah Hamalian, Isaac Brooks, Steven Chodoriwsky, & J MSA. Utah Museum of Contemporary Art Link.