Breathe

On the 23rd of June, 2018, amidst daily theater rehearsals, I presented the performance piece I worked on during a semester for the class of Art and Technology of the PhD in Arts. 
​Matt Makes Games' Celeste hit me hard. The game's theme was strongly familiar, and from the moment I understood that I knew it would find a way into my work.

Breathe is a performance piece that is inspired by and utilizes the game Celeste. In it, after sleeping under the desk for many uncomfortable minutes, I climb into the chair with difficulty, my stressed breathing betraying my lack of strength in doing such an apparently simple task, put on my mask, and begin playing the game. The projection displays my progress in the final stages, only, when I lose control of my breath, when the stress and anxiety over dying for the 50th time on the same spot begins to show, the screen changes, the audio suffers as I do. If I breathe faster than I should, the visuals garble, suffer interference, get more and more broken while the audio's distortion is aggravated as I try to regain some level of calm. I finish the game despite its difficulty, and at the peak I am given strength to finally stand up, get dressed, and move on with my life.

At the end of this private performance, the teacher asked if I could do it again, as I had explained the technicalities of the system I created, the theme of the game and its importance to me in creating this cathartic experience.
I could not do it.
I spoke before of how art feeds more art, how a composer is not a composer, is a performer, a painter, an actor, a designer... Videogames influence my music, my performance pieces, my art, in ways I cannot (or want to) stop. As they should.