Xavier Lopez Performance #10: Hamlet's Ghost: On the Edge: Latinx Performance Art Festival

The day before On The Edge Latinx Performance Art Festival, Lauren Davis and I did a test performance of the Ghost from the Introductory section of the Dream of the Cyborg.  While the audience was small, this was an important performance that reintroduces a character not seen since my third performance. 

Third Performance: Honest as Hell: The Poltergeist. 1992.  

It's important to note that these are sheet ghosts, in the sculptures they are empty figures using strings to hold their shape. In "Hamlet's Ghost," an installation that I am proposed later, I intended to try my first truly theatrical installation by recreating the climactic scene from Shakespeare's Hamlet--moments before so many of the characters become actual ghosts within the narrative of the play. It was a kind of sequel to this performance.

From a conceptual point of view the piece dealt with the infinite iterability of a text/language like Shakespeare's--which in my work always stands metonymically for language or the concept of the idea of the text. The piece, itself also acts itself as a Synechdochic element referring to the Shakespearean whole, moreover, the installation an performance was meant to be a visually arresting and beautiful visual experience.          

The idea of the Sheet Ghost comes from the idea of pareidolia. Pareidolia (/pærɪˈdoʊliə/ parr-i-DOH-lee-ə) is the tendency for incorrect perception of a stimulus as an object, pattern or meaning known to the observer, such as seeing shapes in clouds, seeing faces in inanimate objects or abstract patterns, or hearing hidden messages in music.  For me, this goes back to the Pinnocchio moment in fiction and even in biology where life comes from lifelessness.  This moment plays through in a lot of my work. 

Edited versions of Hamlet's Ghost performance.