Act 4: Control
As humans we are constantly trying to control every aspect of our lives. Particularly as Americans and Westerners it seems that even when we are relaxing or on vacation we have very specific ideas of how we want our time to be spent and to control even things that are out of our realm. When we are on the beach we would like to control how hot the sun is, how cool the water is, how soft the sand is, we are never at rest from trying to control our environment our lives, ourselves and other people.

This work explores the deep, relentless desire and energy of humans’ futile attempt to control all aspects of their lives. Two women engage in the act of trying to control and manipulate an aspect of their environment that is entirely out of their realm of control.

Ironic, funny and outlandish the two women vacuuming in the video function conceptually on many intertwining levels. The vacuum as a machine (woman/man vs. nature) sucks up the sand as a means to rid the beach of the very object/material that makes it what it is, a beach. The machine (or human) will never be able to eliminate all of the sand, just as the performers will never be able to control all aspects of their life. The two women working together suggest community and how we engage in and perpetuate these obsessive behaviors as individuals and in the larger cultural framework.

Lack of complete control is rooted in the very core of being apart of nature, constant change. This makes it impossible to eliminate the uncertainty of that unknown.