Artist, writer, and nightlife impresario Juliana Huxtable presents her new performance There Are Certain Facts that Cannot Be Disputed, co-commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art and Performa, which highlights her evocative use of language and written text. Realized in collaboration with an ensemble of music, sound, video, and lighting artists, three vignettes address the vexed relationship between the ephemeral nature of digital information and the drive for historical documentation in cyberspace, particularly as it relates to closed servers, bounced URLs, and Google cache. Huxtable, who approaches the Web as a vital resource for narratives that are usually discarded or placed in the margins of history, considers how the Internet has evolved from a largely text-based medium to one propelled by the power of visual symbols. She imagines these virtual spaces as twilight zones of desire, where music, dramatic oration, video, and the presence of human and digital characters coalesce into an immersive, schizophrenic experience that traverses topics as diverse as black samurai, trans-healers in South Africa, pre-colonial globalism, and human evolution.
Music and live sound: Elysia Crampton
Drums and piano: Joseph Heffernan
Video: Mitch Moore
Violin and vocals: Sadaf H Nava
Laser projection and lights: Michael Potvin
Costumes: Vaquera
Makeup: Emily Schubert
There Are Certain Facts that Cannot Be Disputed is co-commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art and Performa on the occasion of Performa 15. Organized by The Museum of Modern Art.
Organized by Stuart Comer, Chief Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art, MoMA, and Adrienne Edwards, Curator, Performa, with Martha Joseph, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Media and Performance Art, MoMA.
