WHAT IS LOVE?
Beginning with an enduring question, considered (at least) a metaphysical notion (Jenkins), I was
compelled to ask publicly, “What is Love?” Why ask this question, devise a performance that
situates this puzzlement across audio, textual and performance aspects as a set of diverse
responses? Love perpetuates, colours our existence. The range of public answers mediated and
formed into a 10-minute audio recording, replies given by strangers needed a counter, a balance
or imbalance to show the diversity of thoughts attached to these ideas exemplified through love.
Text of excerpts of poems I wrote, also answers to this question, combine with the interviews into
a projected video. The white on black poem excerpts read as subtitles on a black screen project, along with unmatched public audio responses. This background grounds the live component of
What is Love? as a multimedia contextualisation. The solo performance in front of the screen
continues the dialogue as a monologue, countering public responses, contrasts written thoughts
with live questioning, “What is Love?”
Beginning with an enduring question, considered (at least) a metaphysical notion (Jenkins), I was
compelled to ask publicly, “What is Love?” Why ask this question, devise a performance that
situates this puzzlement across audio, textual and performance aspects as a set of diverse
responses? Love perpetuates, colours our existence. The range of public answers mediated and
formed into a 10-minute audio recording, replies given by strangers needed a counter, a balance
or imbalance to show the diversity of thoughts attached to these ideas exemplified through love.
Text of excerpts of poems I wrote, also answers to this question, combine with the interviews into
a projected video. The white on black poem excerpts read as subtitles on a black screen project, along with unmatched public audio responses. This background grounds the live component of
What is Love? as a multimedia contextualisation. The solo performance in front of the screen
continues the dialogue as a monologue, countering public responses, contrasts written thoughts
with live questioning, “What is Love?”
A pile of 2-3-metre-long, 1/3-1/2-metre-wide strips of bubble wrap lays on the floor. This is the
makings of a prophylactic, a protective device to prohibit feeling from transgressing personal
space. The interviews/texts play throughout the construction of my feeling condom. I respond
to the interview recording as I construct the defense against feeling. A small spotlight that
changes colour throughout the action accentuates and highlights an obfuscated my presence,
symbolising the eclipse of how we know love.
Works Cited
Jenkins, C.S.I. "What Is Love? An Incomplete Map." Journal of the American Philosophical
Association (2015 ): 349–364. 20 November 2018.
makings of a prophylactic, a protective device to prohibit feeling from transgressing personal
space. The interviews/texts play throughout the construction of my feeling condom. I respond
to the interview recording as I construct the defense against feeling. A small spotlight that
changes colour throughout the action accentuates and highlights an obfuscated my presence,
symbolising the eclipse of how we know love.
Works Cited
Jenkins, C.S.I. "What Is Love? An Incomplete Map." Journal of the American Philosophical
Association (2015 ): 349–364. 20 November 2018.
Photo by Eddy Jackson
“Speak you too,
speak as the last,
say out your say.
Speak-
But don’t split off No from Yes.
Give your say this meaning too:
Give it the shadow.
Give it shadow enough,
Give it as much
As you know is spread round you from
Midnight to midday and midnight.
Look around:
See how things all come alive-
By death! Alive!
Speaks true who speaks shadow.
But now the place shrinks, where you stand:
Where now, shadow-stripped, where?
Climb. Grope upwards.
Thinner you grow, less knowable, finer!
Finer: a thread
The star wants to descend on:
So as to swim down bellow, down here
Where it sees itself shimmer:in the swell
Of wandering words.”
― Paul Celan
