Indelible

In my most recent research, I consider personal narrative and testimony in high profile sexual assault cases as a kind of a performance art of the kind typified by Marina Abramovic in works such as “Rhythm Zero” and Yoko Ono in her most famous work “Cut Piece.” The American legal system requires victims of sexual assault to make a public spectacle of their most intimate suffering for a hostile and disbelieving audience. At best, an accuser can hope for a carceral solution, an outcome that is no less problematic by virtue of being rare. In new performance work, I consider what purposes the command performances aka testimonies of Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford serve? Do they, as many feminist commentators assert, galvanize activism and serve a role in fighting violence much as a drip of water wears down a stone, or do they merely restage and ultimately reify patriarchal violence and position survivors, frequently female or queer, as martyrs whose endurance rather than emancipation is to be applauded? Has this testimony become a kind of torture porn? If so, what are the other ways that survivors’ stories might more effectively be performed?