Winter 2025 Residency Update #1

A collage of exploratory inspirations

Linnea

After coming to terms with the reality that I've been struggling with chronic, pervasive burnout, getting back into a healthy "creation" mindset hasn't felt easy. I've had several ideas bouncing around in my brain for months, years even, but haven't had the mental energy or the support necessary to bring said ideas to life. My goal for the next few months is to start stretching those creation muscles again and develop at least a bite-sized, presentable work.

The past ten years have left me feeling not "artsy" enough for art spaces, but not "techy" enough for tech spaces. I can clearly visualize the connection between the two, but realizing it requires a significant amount of finesse. The past couple of weeks, Christy and I have been wading back into the depths of creation without the framework of academia. With no one to judge the validity of our ideas, we are now ourselves made judge. I'm not used to this dynamic. How can I be sure my work is "good enough" without an arbiter of validity? Who am I to call myself an expert? Who even cares?

Despite the noise, some themes of exploration and research have emerged: making the invisible visible, dynamism within the static, symbiosis between artist and performance space, upholding a sense of whimsy despite it all. More practically speaking, we were already able to play around with some of our own performance technologies and rediscover the joy within them removed from the academic sphere. It's refreshing to finally feel like exploration and creation is fun again; however, I must still confront the inquietude that results at the thought of wrangling technology to do my bidding. I hope the next few months will help alleviate some of that fear.

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Christiana

Working in creative technology and designing meaningful devices, experience, or apparatuses takes a lot of practice, patience, and perseverance. It is not a task for the faint of heart. There are so many ‘muscles’ one has to exercise in order to accomplish something that it can be exhausting. However, there is delight and whimsy to be found; the journey is often the most intriguing part. The destination is sometimes out of reach or, more often, could be “improved upon.” There’s always another direction to go or somewhere to dive deeper. The journey becomes a practice of endless play, exploration, pondering, reflecting, building, failing or flailing. We have embarked on a new journey, a residency we’ve created for ourselves; really a return to our roots to rejuvenate and deepen our practice. 

The next couple of months will be entertaining to say the least! The past couple weeks we returned to some of our older projects to see what still worked and determine what we should bring back along with us. We’ve also started exploring new technologies and are intrigued to see where those explorations take us. What other avenues in light, video, movement and sound can we express with? What couplings or correlations do we find meaningful at this moment? For a little dash of whimsy, we even started a musical duo we’re calling Hot Lettuce! Our first jam was an epic dirge on keytar and accordion – two instruments new to both of us.

The first part of this residency we’ve created for ourselves has been a warm up session for many of our ‘muscles.’ As we revisit the various disciplines, we are reminded of the growing pains, the excitement of new ideas, and the importance of documenting and sharing our work as we go. There’s an ebb and flow to our process, it’s a constant undercurrent of the work we create too. Stay tuned to follow along!