BREAK MY BODY LIBERATE MY SOUL

Karyn Nakamura

Bsad

Advisor: Tobias Putrih

BREAK MY BODY LIBERATE MY SOUL is a 1 hour performance featuring a 20 channel Frankenstein video organism that has taken over the abandoned R&D Pub in the Stata Center at MIT. The majority of the technology used in the installation is Ewaste collected from the loading docks in the basement of Stata as well as other campus dumpsters or obsolete equipment borrowed from the Theater Arts tech closet.

The old, broken, discarded guts of MIT that have been abandoned in dumpsters and dusty closet corners amidst the rapid development of advanced technology are salvaged, stripped down, and sutured together into a delicate system. Glass tanks are suspended from 20ft above ground containing the insides of CRT TVs as well as liquids and wires, numerous digital monitors are scattered around the room, and a tangled network of cables, wires, and tubes circulate water, power, air, and signal throughout the space. The organism is sprawled across the pub, manifesting itself through the 20 screens that act as windows to its soul. There is one right way for a machine to work, but everything breaks in its own way. Each piece of hardware and every algorithm it runs has a character that is exposed in its flaws. In an error, a machine opens up an exclusive side of itself to you. It is an open wound out of which technology flows raw and free, no longer confined in its manufacturer’s definition of utility. Sometimes it drips like a leaky faucet. Other times it is an overflowing stream that gushes through the cracks and drowns you in the unexpected colors of its full potential. This work is my attempt to serve as an acolyte for the machine’s catharsis born out of failure.