Monologues II: patriarchal traditions and the New Age, 2018 (props)

The Metronome ticks. The Lady blinks. The Finger flexes. Together they perform a scientific experiment that was originally conducted in the 1980s by Benjamin Libet. Although conceived to measure decision making processes in the living human brain, the experiment is frequently evoked in debates around the idea of free will. I investigate this idea through linking the experiment with the C19th feminine practice of trance speaking. The scenario and its figures are also encoded with color systems developed in previous projects: the basic subjective 6; a synaesthetic alphabet of 26; and the ground of all being (pink).