CARELESS WHISPERS

Interactive live performance, exhibited at:
Performance Pets, curated by Fyodor Pavlov Andreevich & Anna Shpilko, at Fatima Maleki's House, London, 27th May 2018.
Venice International Performance Week, at Palazzo Mora, Venice 2017.

MVB presents Careless Whispers, a sensory immersive durational performance in which she enacts the role of Cyborg exploring the human condition through the cybernetic phenomenon of ASMR (Auto Sensory Meridian Response) popularised through YouTube. Careless Whispers seeks to explore the queer possibilities of ASMR within the context of performance and its inherent fetishistic tendencies, through production methods of dressing, masking and recording; mimicking the emergent use of ASMR techniques in the marketing of commodities. Dressed in layers of artificial skin, and using binaural microphones she performs a dance for the viewers who are invited to listen to her interior domain – as she chews on copious amounts of gum, pops bubble wrap, and whispers the all too familiar George Michael song lyrics of the performance’s title – creating a faux sense of intimacy undermined by the surrounding crowd.

With thanks to Sukaina Kubba and Ari Níelsson.

Photo documentation by Undra Byambe, Alexander Harbaugh and Simge Burhanoğlu.