I made this play for you; it’s a question to keep us alive together. Is all intimacy about bodies? What happens when our bodies distance intimacy from us?
Backplaces is a web-based play. A short anthology of poems and stories about vulnerability, intimacy, and the internet. It explores the internet as a place for holding big feelings and intimacy when it is unbearable. As a homage to those who have been vulnerable with me, I created "backplaces". They are tender online spaces for relief and acknowledgement of societal pain.
Some of these stories may evoke memories of pain. As you sit in the audience, know I am with you. If it feels overwhelming, you can step out, take a break, or leave. This isn't choreographed, and I care for you.
I hope you see what I saw in these stories. Sweet dreams now, and I'll talk to you soon.
<p> This is the first act of this play, Solar Sibling. It reimagines user comments from TikTok videos about sibling relationships. To do this, I have taken the feelings behind the comments, found where they met my own, and used our shared words to write poems. Solar Sibling celebrates the vulnerabilities nurtured in online communities and invites you to share anonymously on the complexities of sibling relationships. Once you have whispered your sibling feelings to me, they will stay with me and I will never use nor share them. <br/>
<p>Hermit Fantasy is a short story about a bot and a hermit. It started when I conducted a survey about receiving emotional support on the internet. This is an imagined response to an email I received. The story explores the loneliness of both being online and offline. As an act, it's a series of letters, click by click.
<p>Cake Intimacies is a performance that took a year to bring together. It is a small selection of stories people told me that I held to memory and rewrote here. The stories come from two performances I hosted.
In the first, I asked participants to eat cake, sitting facing or away from each other, and share stories about cake and the internet. I hosted the second performance at the Art Meets Radical Openness Festival. There I predicted participants' future internet lives using felted archetypes. In return, I received stories about feeling strong emotions on the internet.<br/>
