This series of performances was produced by collecting other people's text messages and having them performed by actors as short plays. Some were only a few minutes, while others ended up being epic journeys that told stories of entire rises and falls of relationships. Ultimately that is what these (and many of my other projects) are about; examining intimacy, close relationships, and the way people engage with each other.
I became interested in text messages as a means of storytelling when I began to notice people at social gatherings would read conversations aloud from their phones as a means of telling something funny, sad, or interesting that happened to them. Sometimes they were self-deprecating moments, miscommunications, breakups, arguments, steamy exchanges. Basically, the comedies and tragedies of our lives.
For many people this is the primary way they communicate with each other, and so there is now this bank of archives building up inside of people's phones that tell their life stories.
This project was produced in collaboration with artist Amy Conway. Thanks to an opportunity by RACC and Weird Shift.
