Live and video reenactments based on The Performance Arcade online archives. Using masks, props, and a lotto machine, RIFF RAFF (collaboration with Li-Ming Hu) performed opening night speeches, artist interviews and blasts from the present. How do institutions and artists talk about themselves? How are their actions documented and remembered? In the 11 years that The Performance Arcade has been running, there have been many interviews with artists and 11 opening speeches. A fraction of these were recorded, and formed the basis of our looping performance.  Beginning with a reenactment of The Performance Arcade’s 2017 opening night speeches by then Mayor Justin Lester and Arcade Artistic Director Sam Trubridge, we oscillated between speech and interview modes, via reenactments of past interviews with Arcade artists, and interviews with their artist peers at The Performance Arcade 2022. A custom made lotto machine determined the order of proceedings, and audience members were welcome to enter the container to peruse the custom made pieces of Performance Arcade memorabilia on display in between in-person performances. *Li-Ming Hu performed from New York via livestream.

Daphne Simons

I Found It On The Internet: A semi-archival semi-reenactment