Photographs, Performance
The Story of My life

(excerpt from Every Day Counts: Reactions and Reflections on Linda Montano)

ART
For one hour, 12:00pm-1:00pm, on a Wednesday, I sat on a bench while telling stories about my life to passers by. I wore a felt skirt, the color of which is similar to the red earth found in South Africa, where I grew up. A CD player lay beside me, and played alien automata. A generative audio environment constructed for me by Nathaniel Clark for the installation “Alien”, which I had done the year before. A stack of Xeroxed images of myself, as a child lay on the bench for people to take. Two Polaroid cameras lay on the bench with a note: document me. I included a marker for people to sign their name on the photograph and a drop box to collect them.

LIFE
I was very nervous when I got there. I sat down on the bench and organized all my things around me. I was comforted by Nathaniel’s alien automata. I started playing the CD as soon as I could. Nathaniel had created his first exploration into cellular automata for sound, using a small matrix of sine tone and noise generators (in MAX MSP) to weave evolving textures and random perturbations. He had created this as a vague elemental theme to intersect with my divisions of the space. Listening to it reminded me of the summer I did the ‘Alien’ installation, and how relaxed and happy I was then. I meditated for a moment with my eyes closed, and tried to calm myself. In much the same way as the aura portraits in the park, I acknowledged that whomever was meant to come my way - would.

People were very supportive of this project. Many stopped to talk and document the experience for me. Some people just wanted to take my picture. The following collaborators took photographs: Brittany Powell, Cecilia, Deborah Sprzeuzkouski, Ginny Kleker, David Huffman, Laurel Voss, Matt Gerring, Lauren Pace, Rob DiCristifaro, David Stein and Travis Kerkela. I explained that I was telling stories about my life, and that they could ask me anything they wanted to. I told them that I had to tell them the truth, no matter what they asked me. Interesting questions I was asked included:

“I want to know about what you were like when you were an undergrad. Did you study art? What did you look like? What clothes did you wear?”.

“What is your most painful memory about your mother?”

“What is your biggest fear?”

“What was it like growing up in South Africa and then moving to the United States? How did the shift in context to race effect you?”

One woman became very afraid when I explained to her that I would answer anything she wanted to know, and tell her the truth. She said she was afraid of the truth, and refused to ask me anything. This was an interesting parallel to the people who were so involved in seeing how far they could push me. While it was uncomfortable to answer some of these questions, I felt it was important to be as truthful as possible, for the sake of the project, and also for the sake of my own integrity as an artist.

I wrote to my aunt about this performance, and showed her some of the documentation through email. This was her reply:

"I once did something similar in that I had to find a stranger in a public setting to tell my deepest, darkest secret to. It was fascinating to see how people responded and how willing they were to share theirs. Some of course weren't and it all depended on how they were approached. I saw many people get a response of ‘you're with that fucking i am* training, aren't you?’ I chose the guy who worked the kiosk at the Zoo Lake. Had bought so many cups of sticky orange juice and soft serve ice cream from him over the years, that he seemed a perfect candidate. He told me that he had cheated in his final high school exams! I told him that I'd had an abortion."

*[as she explains it: 'i am' is an acronym for Individual Achievement and Motivation. Neither philosophical nor psychological, this program is primarily ontological, giving people a fundamental way of being through which they operate their lives with success.]

I feel that the conversations I had with people, including this one with my aunt, are indicative of the intimacy and gift-exchange qualities I am looking for in my work.