“I Think I Liked Soap Bubbles Best” (2011)

Note: Performers uncredited on this site pending their request otherwise.

24 minutes long, designed as a two-channel installation, to be projected on opposite walls, preferably with a white clawed bathtub in the center (blowing soap bubbles out the spout/pipe?) It has never been installed as planned, but was presented on two television monitors as part of an exhibit at the University of Toronto Art Gallery. At that opening, I presented a performance installation with claro cosco echoing the video installation: In the courtyard, two musicians created noise art with violins and bass guitars while a bubble machine filled the air with soap bubbles. It was also presented as a single channel at a youth art show at Buddies In Bad Times Theatre.

It is about embodiment and muse. Specifically regarding embodiment, this is about gender and the spirit: two performers were asked to perform my score based on their similar gender-queerying identities, clowning personalities, spiritual practices, and their opposite sex assignments. They were not given rehearsal time. The text considers what it is like to be alive and in a particular body as a dialogue with the creative spirit.

I am asking questions about how we imagine and where it exists within us.

In the videos, there are two performers and three sections of each performer: one layer of each performer delivering dialogue (below) with the other off camera in the bathtub, one transparent layering of swimming in the bathtub, and one of striking poses of clowning gender in the bathtub. The two channels play through until each of the six sections has juxtaposed every other.

Here is the text:

[shot of person in bathtub]

Voice Over – I think I like soap bubbles best.

Person in Bathtub – really… that’s interesting.

Voice – and I really liked falling in love.

Person – alot of people liked that best of all, and some people really hated that. And some people also liked sex best, or family best.

[pause] The soap bubbles are a more peculiar choice, I would like to hear more about that.

Voice – Hey, I really liked fish too. I am really glad there are fish. You swim and you can eat them.

Person – Would you like to be a fish then?

Voice – I like inhaling and exhaling.

Person – Maybe a whale or a dolphin?

Voice – I also really like having limbs. Horses have limbs too, but they move very differently… they are oriented towards the ground more. That’s neat. I guess humans are really forward oriented. Stereoscopy is really neat. I am glad that developed.

[Person in tub covers one eye]

Person – Its hard to show that on the screen, though, isn’t it? Everything flattens. But the camera sure captures the forward facing thing you were talking about.

Voice – 180 degree rule. You could have those half dome screens too – but people’s brains can’t see 360 degrees — they can’t see spheres.

Person – Yep. They could have, you know. Try to picture it. Vision that goes all the way around —

Voice – I bet I could dream like that – all the way around seeing like that.

[Person getting out of bathtub and toweling off]

Voice – Maybe there would be many more eyes to see that way… like bugs maybe. Or like ears.

[Person unplugs drain and water moves]

We hear in spheres.

Yeah. I wonder how birds see, or fish. Their eyes are on the sides of their heads.

Person – Yes. So the soap bubbles huh? Okay. Thanks

Voice – You’re welcome.

 

… also, this is a unicorn fish: