TALENT SHOW


TALENT SHOW is a scripted space that invites participants into a call-and-response structure. The topic of discussion is centered around the everyday and extraordinary performance of identity, intimacy, and the American dream within the pressure-cooker of social media. TALENT SHOW is an invitation to explore and reflect upon the potential pathos and pressure involved in writing a personal script when objectivity is lost and consensus is no longer possible.

The mechanism for the spatial score was developed through the investigation of historical and current forms of American performance which challenge the conventional audience/performer structure. Dance-a-thons, Vaudeville acts, competitive talent shows, Instagram accounts, and reality TV shows were researched alongside identity-forming, autobiographical events that function across similar modalities. 

This project evolved as the result of an ongoing interest in exploring forms of intimate engagement within art-making and sharing that positions itself within a feminist paradigm. The physical landscape explores multiple strategies of porosity through various levels of engagement along a spectrum of proximity. Participants are invited to inhabit the space and continually respond with their own narratives through a multiplicity of mediums. The resulting script for TALENT SHOW continues to unfurl in exponential directions without a distinct beginning or end and cannot be attributed to a singular author.

Call and response: How and why do we cast others in our own script, how do we cast ourselves? Who has agency at any given moment? How do we resolve an individual truth against a collective truth? 

Text by Eli Smith The 1st in-progress showing of Talent Show appeared at The REEF in September of 2019 as part of Hannah Varamini and Brd’s curational series, Love’s Remedies.

A collaboration between Eli Smith (Lead Artist), Brd, Scarlett Kim