Girl in the Box

Part I of the Machine

The Machine contains inherent values of Industrialization, Progress, Technology, ‘The Decline of Western Civilization’, World Wars, Human Suffering, Defects, Materialism, Consumerism, Commercialism, Mass-Production, Convenience, Destruction, Annihilation, Globalization, Modernization, Man-made, Deconstruction . It has forever changed the life of man kind; it represents phenomena that have followed the singular act of creating machinery to complicate and distort living. This relates to the idea of limits as convenience has been an underlying and false rationale behind these phenomena.

(I Am a Thinking Machine/Consciousness is a disease)

This way the Machine relates to the progress of man-kind but I also want to consider it as a metaphor and medium to understand the human being as a Machine itself. This provides a context for venturing into the philosophical realms that asks the questions, What is the human being? What are its components? What is human consciousness? What is the nature of this being?
The more parallels I can draw between the Nature of machines and the Nature of the human being would I be able to inform my vision of them as one and the same.

In November of 2007, I came up with an exercise in which I could pose these questions to myself through experience. This has since become the 'Girl in the Box' series.

Versions of 'Girl in the Box'

Two different edits from the 'Girl in the Box' series can be viewed below.


The first is Discomfort + Speed





The Second version was filmed by the BOOKMANN, from the original 'performance' at Alice Yard in November 2007.

Me in the T.V.

The MTV

The T.V.monolougue

Look into my t.v. and see my soul,
Look into my t.v. and see my insecurities
Look into my t.v. and see my eyes,
Look into my t.v. and see my breast size,
Look into my t.v. and see my Anxiety,
Look into my t.v. and see pain,
Look into my t.v. and see my pessimism,
Look into my t.v. and see my fear,
Look into my t.v. and see my prejudices,
Look into my t.v. and see my manic depression,
Look into my t.v. and see my life story.
Look into the t.v. and see reality.

The T.V. as Existentialism.
It is a basic visual media that links to the ever growing media-technology that extracts the human from reality and re-inserts it into a virtual reality or simulacrum. Within this frame the pseudo-reality glorifies aspects of human behavior that serves to objectify the human as a commodity in the machine of Western domination. The engine grease in this machine is a culture designed to objectify people ……

Women Don't Grow on Trees

This series of works developed from the dismembered parts I was making for the Hot Woman sculpture. This idea was rejected for living sculptures. However I decided to use the pieces for a new show after 'The Temple of Local Sexuality'. I also continued making some more parts while I also asked around if anyone would be interested in working with me. I wanted this to be a collaboration in which my main contribution would be an installation of the casts of female parts. My research led me to a Spoken Word Artist- Ivory Hayes and coincidentally she was working on the ideal event. Together with Tracie Rogers, Jada Lee Condappa, Althea Octave, Akilah Riley, Joanne Charles; they worked on a performance piece about female solidarity. I contributed the name of the event, the artistic design of the show and the place. It happened in a forested area near the chemistry building in the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. I was always drawn to it because it was poorly lit and foreboding. There have also been reports that there are high incidents of rapes at this site which made it important to have this work performed there.

The Guardian newspaper published a feature on the event, it can be read here

More images can be seen here

The Temple of Local Sexuality

This series of work is made up of visual parodies of sexual phrases from the local dialect; it brings together various art mediums to represent culture, history and language as all interlinked. It includes four paintings, installations, food (Arepas) and living sculptures. The living sculptures were originally intended to be one life size life like sculpture of the female form covered in three plume match box covers as a pun 'Hot-Woman'. However I was not able to arrange the pieces of the figure to stand so I decided to leave it in pieces as it was and accept that my role is merely to accomodate a process and not force a preconceived ending. It looked like dismembered body parts and so the title, 'Ah Mash She Up' felt most appropriate. This positioned the piece as a human sacrifice within the spiritual system I was creating. The vernacular expression links sexuality with violence and I seek to take that further and add crime in general by calling it a sacrifice.

The Exotic Erotic

Sexuality’s link to the primal instincts, violence, sin, and all other abjection eroticizes all that is ‘other’; all that stands in opposition to the dominant culture. This is the innate lust or primal attraction to all things different to one’s customs and as a consequence to danger. The establishment of the status quo has long been defined by and described as white middle class culture. This already illustrates that all ‘colored’ people are sexualized as the 'other'; making them a desirable/desired threat.

"A lovely little creature but sly, spiteful, malignant perhaps, like everything else in this place."
( Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys, Penguin Books pg 45)

The Entrance

The Cleansing

The Offering

Worshipers : 'Rude Gyals'

Human Sacrifice: 'Ah Mash She Up'

Female and Male aspects of Divinity