Mother Mitochondria and Subsequent Works
Mother Mitochondria, 2020
Mother Mitochondria, 2020
02:40min, video
This piece serves as the introduction to the character, Mother Mitochondria, a character whom embodies the essence and performance of White womanhood in America, deriving her name from the biological theory that all mitochondria can be genealogically traced back to the first, female mitochondria. Within Mother Mitochondria, found footage of White women calling the police on people of color are played alongside the looming Mother figure while the video is narrated by dialogue discussing the end of the world between Lex Luthor and Superman from Superman (1978). This video discusses the disruption of people or color’s daily lives by white women, thrusting the power and privilege of their whiteness through the use of 9-1-1 calls to the police for mundane acts, a gesture which has historically and contemporarily been violent and fatal to people of color. The weaponizing of White woman vulnerability in the form of involving police is situated next to this stoic Mother, watching as the behavior repeats through time.
Interior Motive, 2022
Interior Motive, 2022
Series: Toxic/Parent Trap, Let That Sink In, Let Me Help You Help Me, and Blinded
While she may not physically appear in all videos included within the body of work, Mother Mitochondria is a prominent figure within the body of work, Interior Motive. She is a looming presence pressed against the repeated imagery of White women challenging the decades-old notion of White womanliness. In a series of video installations, Interior Motive examines the indoctrination and complication of the mythology of the American (White) Woman through electronic systems embedded within household objects. Through the recombination and saturation of White woman avatars, the work interrogates the integrity of identity creation through a collection of scripts; constructions that have the potential to deface a role scripted for and reinforced by, White women.
Toxic/Parent Trap, 2022
Toxic/Parent Trap, 2022
04:09min
digital installation; video and wood
Parent Trap/Toxic, emphasizes the internally constructed aspect of White woman identity indoctrination through Mother Mitochondria’s infiltration of my home. The camera switches between the bedroom, the hallway, to the bathroom, and begins with the frame following Mother’s crown as she parades up the stairs. She is coming to visit me again. I speak to the camera as an interviewee, unsteady as my guest advances. Mother Mitochondria’s voice begins. She recites her thoughts to me, beginning with, “My Dearest Darling.” Her words of manipulative endearment intertwine with my hesitant remarks. Varying lens focus, alternating clip speeds, figures fading in and out of the frame, and my dual role-playing produce multiple planes within the video. This creates a sense of disorientation and distortion of the reality of the home and the physicality of Mother within it. The video cuts between my attempts to hide from her, disproportioned bodies within the frame, and the increasing strain between myself and Mother sharing such proximity. Our conversations begin to flow into one another, Mother’s voice overtaking my reasonings behind pushing her away. Mother Mitochondria seeks to collect me, like the women who came before me, with the understanding that my identity is pre-determined and concrete, that it is undeniable.
Let That Sink In, 2022
Let That Sink In, 2022
03:42min, video behind glass
47:41min, looping projection on sink
digital installation; video, projection, glass, wood, and porcelain sink
Let That Sink In centers around a multitude of speech acts enacting the perlocutionary effect of defining whiteness and womanhood. Mother Mitochondria reminds you to wear sunscreen to protect your beautiful porcelain skin, that you have earned everything you have been given, and that “we” are some part Native American, somewhere. She spews these scripts which have been passed down over time, continuous stories which come together to build an understanding of what I am. I am White, and then I am woman. She occupies a broken bathroom vanity mirror sitting over a white pedestal sink. Within the cracks, beyond the shards of broken glass, she speaks. Breaking from Mother’s gaze, the seashell-style sink basin illuminates with movement. The projection is contained to the basin, and my tiny bodies clog the drain opening before eventually fading away, slowly sliding and continuously collecting while Mother reiterates her script through a ruptured reflection.
Let Me Help You Help Me, 2022
Let Me Help You Help Me, 2022
03:34min, video in horizontal picture frame
02:29min, video in vertical picture frame
digital installation; video, picture frames, and ATX power supply
Let Me Help You Help Me is a dual-channel piece, whose side-by-side screens each play a looping video. Each screen is contained within white picture frames occupying the wall as a diptych photo presence. One frame is oriented horizontally and features scenes from Hollywood action and romance sequences centered around the movements of characters’ hands. The vertical frame features stylized Hollywood movie “make-over scenes” from the late 1980s through the 2000s overlaying and blending into one another. The horizontal video follows an arc of White women within various moments of movie peril and hand-holding, spanning from 1959’s North by Northwest to 2016’s La La Land. Outstretched hands are grabbed, and the danger of the day has been deflected, just before the cycle begins again. The makeover video follows the merging of bodies, figures, and environments as film frames flow between salon chairs, shopping sprees, and the “beautifying” of White women characters. The colorful layering of multiple bodies within the frame contrasts with the quick-cutting, icy color palette of one-on-one “action hand” sequences, but there are moments of disruption. As images of Mean Girls shift to Ms. Congeniality, a quick cut reveals black gunk from Jennifer’s Body or the grotesque transformation from The Thing (2007). Images of horrific transformations disrupt the smooth morphing of the video, culminating in a small montage of their own when Princess Mia (The Princess Diaries) takes a long look in the mirror, just before the cycle begins again.
Blinded, 2022
Blinded, 2022
09:43, looping
digital installation; video, wood, window blinds, ATX power supply
Blinded features multiples of Mother Mitochondria as small figures attempting to bar cell phone footage from shining through a window. Her bodies attempt to screen images within a four-quadrant white frame obstructed by blinds. An arrangement of wires cascades downward from the frame and movement from behind the blinds is constant as 64 rectangles flash with White woman aggression and agitation. The videos peeking from behind Mother’s silhouettes feature “Karen” videos. From the recognizable interior of a Victoria’s Secret store to a generic park, White women are crying, assaulting, screaming, and harassing people in public due to their dissatisfaction within these spaces. Their repeated occupation pressed against the multiple Mothers ricochets across the quadrants, their bodies and pointed fingers silently thrashing within the grid beyond the blinds. The visualization of aggressive outbursts by White women serves as potent documentation. This is White women’s response to the dissolution of their power, but it also serves as an example of dynamic actions that actively contradict the mold binding womanhood within whiteness.
Lifetime Achievement, 2021
Lifetime Achievement, 2021
13:46min, video
Lifetime Achievement is a digital video created utilizing deepfake creation software, videos produced from the application Reface, and found footage from the 2017 Golden Globes which spans the introduction, tribute video, and acceptance speech of a lifetime achievement award. The face of “Mother Mitochondria” has integrated and hijacked the face of Meryl Streep through the use of face swapping software, deepfakes, allowing her to assume contemporary and past roles performed on the big screen. She is celebrated by a room of her peers and presents a “call to action”, exposing her inability to see her own power, privilege, and perpetuation of false “woke” liberal whiteness as she attempts to speak as a role model for social change. This piece speaks to the roles performed within media by white women, fictionalized and documented as the “real”, and how the influence of the recognizable face can be achieved through virality, repetition, and technical intervention.
An Interview with Mother Mitochondria, 2020
An Interview with Mother Mitochondria, 2020
11:05min, video
An Interview with Mother Mitochondria is a second part piece to the earlier, Mother Mitochondria, which investigates the coded statements and contradictory actions of white women in the name of “safety”, “protection”, and “fear”. Through the use of found footage and a recorded interview of Mother Mitochondria, incidents of white women violently threatening people of color caught on cellphone footage are layered alongside the Mother speaking on how to retain power and comfort in the American social structure and the subsequent interviews given by these women themselves explaining their reactions as those made out of fear and the need to feel safe. This piece points to the contradictory actions and explanations provided by white women who actively threaten people of color, either directly or through the use of the police, unpacking the coded language of “safe” and “fear” as safety for white people against the threat of people of color.