Performance

PERFORMANCE

Cosmocrane

Site-Specific Performance
Presented by Kadist SF + CMAC for Neon Was Never Brighter @ Ross Alley
Chinatown, San Francisco, CA, 2022

https://kadist.org/program/laura-hyunjhee-kim-for-neon-was-never-brighter-a-glimpse-into-the-future/

“Cosmocrane” is a site-specific performance that pulsates with the past and present memories embedded within San Francisco’s oldest alleyway. A narrow pathway tucked in the heart of Chinatown, Ross Alley wore many faces and was worn by many phases. It has been given many names and its notorious fame precedes its reputation as a destination. To this day, the hyper-local portal is enriched by its history and culture that ebbs and flows with the vibrancy of its people throughout the day. Ross Alley will be activated as a site that poetically quilts fleeting history-making experiences, chance-encounters, and temporal moments of noticing. Languaging through birds as graceful messengers of wisdom and speaking through the mystical symbolism of cranes, the real-time experience gestures to a being-togetherness through healing, harmonizing, and balancing in-between nuanced architectures of intimacy or in-to-me-see. Kim attempts to blur the continuum of everyday art, life, and storytelling into a (a)synchronous dialogue between her life-as-lived body and those of residents/bypassers that coexist in a shared time and space. The performance will occur twice, each that responds to the (in)visibility afforded by the amount of natural light.

(Preview Trailer)

A-LIVE Virtual Lotioning Session

Live Zoom Performance, Online
7-9PM EST, April 25. 2021
Hive Art Community

"In times that call for constant hand-washing and limited human-to-human contact, "A-LIVE Virtual Lotioning Session” is about noticing and attending to one’s own body-to-body. Through an intimate yet public presentation of applying lotion to one’s own hand(s), the performance positions self-care as a doubling act, one that is for others as much as it is for oneself. With a spin on a daily ritual that is simultaneously mundane and absurdly sensual, an emollient-for-skin morphs into paint and a hand transforms into a “sensorial canvas,” waiting to be touched by all felt-experiences: "Time to give your hand(s) some loving that only hugs your hand and no other human's."

Below are quotes from local volunteers who participated in the public performance.
The piece was not photographed and thus documentation exists by means of the experiential written accounts of the participants.

"The choice for the outside public terrace has been decided on before us. The terrace is part of
the closed movie theatre, and is deserted. We are with three performers. We sit down, and one
takes a seat at a separate table. Pretty quick it becomes clear that we have different
interpretations on how to apply the lotion on our hands. I have a tube of hand lotion with me,
and an empty jar, and brush. The others brought a bottle with disinfection lotion with them. I
squeeze my lotion in the jar and start covering my right hand with the lotion using the brush. I
make gentle brush strokes and play with the different directions and shapes of my right hand.
One of the other performers decides to use my lotion. Their technique of applying the lotion
on their hands is by rubbing both hands together. It is a beautiful technique seeing the left and
right hand hugging each other. It's the ultimate form of self-care in a time where touch has
become a very sensitive issue. Leonard, with who I share the table with, tells me about his job
as a sailor. His hands become very dry because of the roughness of his gloves that wears
during his job. The lotioning of the hands for him, and his colleagues, is a typical ritual and a
break of their work. During our lotioning ritual, I miss the public feeling of what a usual
terrace is." — ieke

"although i didnt really get it, it was nice to meet my hands again." — Leonard

"I never applied a liquid to my hands in this manner. People stared." — Emmy

"At first I tried to connect to my hand. If felt as if I never seen my hand before. To think of it, it
must have been a very long time ago that I consciously saw my hand. As I tenderly stroke the
brush with a bit of lotion on my hand, it felt good and gave a kind of meditative feeling. It
opened me te explore further. I started to see my hand in every detail. Gradually I started to
get deeper in exploring the possibilities of drawing: playing with what the wind and the sun
had to offer, using more and more lotion, and what that does to the drawing and how it feels.
Finally I became aware of what is around me at sounds, movement and feeling, more than
seeiing, the other performers and very naturaly we ended together." — Safanja

"The location under the chestnut tree was perfect. I have never studied my hands for such a long
time. By applying the lotion so carefully to my hands, I forgot that I usually don't like my hands
that much. It was a meditative experience." — Jello

"I experienced it as a very topical action. that was excercised alone and together at the same time.
it was very soothing and refreshing." — Nico

A Live Lotioning Session

Public performance intervention in collaboration with local performers organized by the festival
Nieuwstraat Festival, Dordrecht, Netherlands
9:00 to 9:15 AM, June 20, 2020