In April 1981, at my request, my mother went to a detective agency. She hired them to follow me, to report my daily activities, and to provide photographic evidence of my existence. –Sophie Calle
What if you were to see yourself through the objective eyes of another – what might you learn that you never knew? Imagine this, go deep, consider how you might be seen by those who have never met you, just a stranger in public going about their day like every other human on earth. When we step back and consider this angle, we can begin to unpack the randomness of existence itself and our own life as just a speck floating in a sea of billions. While perhaps this idea can make us feel incredibly small, it can also be wonderfully humbling to realize that our struggles and triumphs are part of a vast network of humanity all walking through life on this little planet of ours.
Ellen Pearlman spoke to us in 2019 about a number of things, including her life as a global traveler and what was happening in her studio at the time. She was working on developing an emotionally intelligent, artificially intelligent brain-computer opera – a concept that was just a bit ahead of its time. She had already made the world’s first interactive brain opera, and this builds on that. In the original project, human participant wears a brainwave headset that interacts with a computer. In the new project, there was the addition of an emotionally intelligent computer. To learn more about Ellen’s work, and these projects in particular, listen to the complete interview.
Kristin Marting joined us in 2021 when we discussed her role as founding artistic director of HERE, an award-winning progressive arts center in lower Manhattan. At the time, we were emerging from the pandemic. Marting herself, a very people-oriented person as a theater maker, talked bout what a strange time it had been to be in her home so much, though she did take some valuable lessons from those complicated circumstances as we faced both the pandemic and a “racial reckoning” in the U.S. To learn more about Marting’s time during the pandemic, her work at HERE and more, listen to the complete interview.
A few words to keep in your pocket
Dare to contemplate yourself as just one of many, your experiences as part of an ocean of humanity.
Outings
Join me at Andrew Edlin Gallery for CO₂ Blues, an exhibition of work by the late Melvin Way
Interviews are available on iTunes as podcasts, and for Android, please click here. All weekly essay pieces are here in a shareable format. The full archive of interviews is here.
More books to read
Ours is a community of readers. Tell us what books you’re reading now by adding your titles to our reading list here. Praxis member Jan Kirstein Rigor is reading Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History by Bridgett Quinn, illustrated by Lisa Congdon
Opportunities
Loghaven Artist Residency provides artists with a transformative experience in historic log cabins on 90 acres of Knoxville woodland. Eligible artists receive stipends and access to new studio spaces for diverse creative disciplines. For more information, visit the website. Application deadline is July 15.