“And as I watch myself through the mirrored lights on my laptop screen, I notice my own reflection; in that moment I am aware of my two halves.”

“my year of selfish”, the start to a longer collaborative project. We are drawn to investigate the entanglement between our real bodies and our digital ones.

Are these two selves really different entities? Is the digital a fragment of the original self? Do they bond over how good they’ve gotten at this social performance, how they reel in the gaze, how they curate your desire? Does the digital body stick its tongue out, teasing the physical body about its impermeability?

Writing “my year of selfish” was meant to be a bit silly but also be a raw engagement with desire, and what vulnerabilities underlie it. An idealised projection. Something to be captured by a camera.

But there’s this itch of control, perpetual of uncertainty of myself, even if it comes with all this possibility for empowerment.

I’m performing and I want people to see that part, not the vulnerability weighing down my words. Or, isn’t that the part that I actually want to be seen? Please see through me!!

And now you’re watching the video through your own phone.

Trippy, layers to the digital self and sensation of watching someone online.

Elizabeth (Hannah) lets the camera shake. It’s a one take voiceover, so my voice shifts and I don’t read the whole poem perfectly. I swallow between lines, we left the window open while recording. You can see a nasty burn on my left hand if you look hard enough. I wiggle and shift, trying to pose.

It’s a digital construction of self, after all. Maybe you’ll never really know who I am, what I want, until you get me in the flesh. Maybe not, even then. And whose perspective is filming this, anyways?

“How many fragmented parts of the mind/body/soul/digital makeup who we are? My being is represented by shapes and colors that catch my eye; do they catch yours? I want them to, just please don’t look too closely.  

Or do.

I don’t care.”