You are enough for someone to love it’s true
Desktop lecture performance (4:58), public intervention, video (3.05, 4:05)
“You are enough for someone to love, it’s true” is a three-part project that makes speculative connections between trance possession, rituals of healing, Tik Tok and mental health. A recorded desktop lecture performance Lately I have been thinking about exorcisms and Tik Tok cycles through text on a reading device overlaid with automated reading that narrates and introduces these speculative connections. Accompanying the performance two other videos Tenet and You are enough for someone to love, it’s true document public performances made in collaboration with ensemble based physical theater artist, actor-creator, educator, dancer, choreographer, mask player, mask maker, director, and clown, Veenadari Lakshika Jayakody.
Together the works ask if trance states, which can be seen as a vehicle for the expression of repressed emotions in marginal groups, can be thought of as being reproduced on social media applications such as Tik Tok. In traditional healing ceremonies the love of one’s family and community is as much of a part of the healing as the ritual dances meant to ward off demonic possession. However, the privatization of mental health in late capitalism requires us to seek community healing through the logic of competition, through the benevolence of the algorithm, for likes and engagement.
Music: Soundtrack from the motion picture Tenet (excerpt featured on Tik Tok trends), Ron Gallo - YOU ARE ENOUGH (Caroline Rose Remix)
In collaboration with Veendari Lakshika Jayakody
Costume and film production support - Kasun Chathuranga Ukwaththa, Yasendri Edirisinha, Jayampathi Guruge, Pasindu Ranaweera
Initially produced during Net//Work Residency, October - November 2021, The Wysing Art Center in partnership with British Council and DAS Belfast.