This was my very first Performance, it was unrecorded as we were too young and just didn't know any better. This was before we all carried cameras and we just didn't know, didn't understand the importance of documenting things.
"Preliminary Sketch for "Dum Dum Boy" Performance. This performance was very simple, influenced by the work of Gilbert and George. 1991/1992."
From my upcoming biography: "I remember the first time that I ever did a performance art piece. Not performance, like singing or dancing, but performance art, like Chris Burden, Joseph Beuys, and Paul McCarthy.
I was dressed in a clown mask, black shorts and Minnie Mouse ears. I could barely see anything. In the background a loop tape played the “Bag of Laughs” from the death of the Joker in the first Batman movie.
I was propped up against a wall, as Robert Morrison’s sculpture class walked in, all of them watching me as I stood there, loop after loop playing endlessly, until my shaking legs gave way and I dropped from sheer exhaustion.
As I stood there, I remembered the inspiration for this piece. I was walking through Toys R Us in Reno one day, when I passed a wall of laughing bags and, just as I did so, Reno had its largest earthquake up to that date.
Bag after bag began to laugh, loudly, maniacally--the moment was terrifying--it sliced deep into the heart of me. It meant so much, it meant so many things all at once--eviscerating the seriousness of life and opening death up to the ironic, sarcastic meaninglessness that only a mechanical, mindless wall full of novelty gags or a rampaging virus could begin to approach.
A memory within a memory. A dream within a dream. I snapped back into reality."
