The idea for this performance came to me at midnight as I was trying to fall asleep. Earlier that day, my grandfather (mom's dad) had been discharged from his weeklong-stay at the hospital. It was terrifying and infinitely worrying to receive reports from his 7 children who were keeping each other updated on his condition, and he was at the forefront of my mind.
Both my grandparents are experiencing dementia, which is natural, they're both in their 90s. I became interested in what it feels like to experience dementia, so that I could understand their point of view.
There were 2 performance days planned across 2 weeks, one after the other. I expected to have 2 weeks to prepare for this performance, but ended up volunteering for the first week since I felt like I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to achieve for this performance. I knew I could pull it off with great perseverance.
The plan: 2 side by side showings of a film so that each audience member is within close proximity to the projection. Overhead lights above a row of chairs to control the lighting from the moment people walk in. A large speaker behind the audience, on both sides.
I knew there were a lot of hard skills that I needed to acquire to make this happen:
hanging projectors
programming DMX lights
And other things that I would be doing for the first time:
creating a scrim
using 2 projectors at the same time
using a MIDI controller w/ MadMapper
