Photo by Simranpreet Anand
Comedy in America. performance
video screening and performance. Dec 2022
The pieces of performance “Comedy in America” shows my minimal,
failing effort to erase and modify the man-made speech in the United States–the
series of comedies where people made racist jokes against “Asian” people. I
perform to intervene in a human’s speech repeatedly, diligently, and
feebly.
Interrupting or hijacking human speech (either spoken or written statement) is an act that invades the politics of an orderly world. This is represented as a performative interruption in my art, which is poetic but disconcerting, feeble but persistent, quiet but assertive.
I intervene in racist comedy by reducing the speed of the videos of comedy radically so that it may sound ridiculous, not normal. I try hard, repeatedly, but all of my attempts fail by missing many of the racist sentences to slow down.
Interrupting or hijacking human speech (either spoken or written statement) is an act that invades the politics of an orderly world. This is represented as a performative interruption in my art, which is poetic but disconcerting, feeble but persistent, quiet but assertive.
I intervene in racist comedy by reducing the speed of the videos of comedy radically so that it may sound ridiculous, not normal. I try hard, repeatedly, but all of my attempts fail by missing many of the racist sentences to slow down.
Filmed by Ben Zink