The Artificial

Two speaking actors and one silent drag queen improvise a meditation on shame, artifice, and ecstasy. The video takes us on a journey into an inner landscape, which includes a description of the desserts offered to pilgrims visiting a mystical shrine, a feather duster which makes apartments dirtier rather than cleaner, and a mysterious tapping sound which ruins a nights’ sleep. Multiple layers of overlaid imagery and text help the viewer to make sense of the complex soundtrack, which consists of two simultaneous monologues plus music, by bringing out the emotional and musical threads which run through the piece, while highlighting key phrases of text.