—pause—

“-pause-” was an interdisciplinary collaboration between myself and multimedia artist alvin hill. The project was performed in a study hall known as the “Fishbowl” at the University of Michigan during finals week in the end of November 2023. Funded through the UM Arts & Resistance theme semester, the performance invited participants to take a break from non-stop productivity and embrace rest as an alternative form of resistance. We performed immersive sounds with a modular synthesizer (alvin) and a vocal looper (Emilia), which were routed through a multi-channel headphone system. Participants had the ability to switch between channels at any given moment, interacting with the music and vocal prompts that were played live simultaneously. The project was intended to convey the variety of ways that rest is experienced and pursued based on individual preference.