—pause—
“-pause-” is a current collaboration between myself and multimedia artist alvin hill. Our first iteration of the project took place in a study hall at the University of Michigan during finals week in 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.
We will workshop the project this coming May 2024 at York University. Prior to then, we’re seeking participants to respond to the following prompt in this survey: What do you do that is restful?
