Let The Work Be What It Wants To Be: Responding to found material with curiosity and artistry

Using found reels of an old wire recorder from the 1950's, interdisciplinary artist Alison S. M. Kobayashi created her performance piece, "Say Something Bunny!" heralded by the New York Times as “forthrightly funny and briefly pornographic, it is also sneakily moving."

At the 2018 Third Coast Conference, Alison invited the audience to participate in an excerpt of the piece. She then examined the performance as a case study in interpreting archival materials through imagination. We can’t share that performance with you here, but you can go see the show “Say Something Bunny!” in New York through July of 2019.

In this session, Alison shared approaches to unearthing stories in found objects, using structure to embrace chance and discovery, and layering storytelling to engage and challenge audiences.

To following along with the visuals referenced in this session, click here.

Watch the videos referenced in this session:

• Dan Carter [excerpt]
• Hungry Kitty
• Say Something Bunny! [excerpt]

You can also read a full transcript of the this episode, thanks to Descript, coming soon.

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