Wednesday, August 28, 2013

My perception of the world

Two years ago, I directed a performance piece in Sarasota, Florida.  At the time, I was attending Ringling College of Art and Design and we were exploring what art meant to us. Not only did I learn about myself as an artist but the performance piece turned into a social experiment and statement. I dressed an actor in clothing that resembled that of the Elephant Man. The costume was a very close replication of Joseph Merrick from David Lynch's The Elephant Man.  A video of the photos I took are below. 

Why are we so cruel? Why do we possess so much hate? Who are we to stare at someone who is dressed as a "freak". Why do the children react and act like he is a normal person? These are all questions that I have asked myself since the experiment.

Equality is a very difficult subject and problem. How do we fix these societal problems of bigotry and racism? It is extremely difficult, I have found to change someone else's self. Through conversations that I have had, I have realized the self can only drastically be effected by exploration by that person. They can be aided in the process of opening their mind to other things, cultures and people but it is not until they are willing to explore that the self can be adjusted. Since this Elephant Man experience, I was so disgusted by what I discovered, I decided that I would never be afraid of the world.

This fear that we have, where does it originate from? When my speakers make spontaneous static sounds in the middle of the night, why does my roommate think that a black man has broken into our house? What would this world be like without these fears? I was in Boston this summer teaching at an acting camp. On the first day of camp when the students arrive, I was instructed to pick up a couple students from the bus station. After a couple hours of waiting at the station, an older Jamaican homeless man sat next to me and began to converse with me. I did not think for one moment that this man was going to hurt me, he just wanted to talk and I accepted. He eventually went on to tell me that I needed to make babies as soon as I could because "that is the way of life". "Love and making babies are the most important thing", he told me. As crude as he often was in the conversation, talking about sex and child birth, there was a completely innocent morality to him that I could not criticize. I told him about my life and he told me about his. I hope he learned something from me as I certainly learn things from him. Whether or not I wanted to hear some of the things he said is another issue but I certainly went to sleep that night with a comforting feeling that my fearless and accepting intuition is the way that suits my self the best.

Another incident occurred while I was also in Boston when a man stole my friend's phone from a pizza place we were eating at. She began chasing after him and so I followed. We were running through the streets at 10:30 while people were helping us find where the man ran to with her phone. Eventually I tracked him down in an alleyway and said, "HEY, WILL YOU PLEASE GIVE US THE PHONE BACK". He dipped into his pocket, took out the phone and handed it to me. For a split second, as his hand ascended into his pocket, I did not know if a phone was going to emerge or if a weapon was. But I was significantly faster than this man, so I didn't worry too much about that possibility. That's consistently the thing I tell myself, "well, I'm faster than most people so I've got that going for me, there's no reason to be afraid." I have had this conversation with females about fearfulness and it is very hard for me to understand the unfortunate fears that society has instilled on women. I road the bus with my friend in a very small town in Virginia and she was absolutely stressed and terrified the whole time, even when sitting next to me. There was a man with half a face almost straight out of boardwalk empire. Even the half faced man did not scare me, because I was definitely faster than him. No doubt. Jokes aside, I would like to explore fears that people have and why our society has instilled them into our daily lives. It effects us in a terrible way and creates stress that is not needed. I want to be able to communicate with people who have half of a face and who are from Jamacia and have many children. Making films is one of the ways I attempt to do that. So, let's get some tea and maybe a couple board games and let's talk about some things. No fear. No stress.

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