Based on Harris' 1996 performance of the same title, Blue Baby is an
unsettling mediation on the potentially devastating impact of genetic
engineering in the age of homophobic and racist political climate. Drawing
from the possession rituals of his African and Native American ancestor,
Harris creates a primal invocation to all the fetuses aborted by their
parents upon discovering that these unborn are gay or lesbian (or otherwise
undesirable.)
running time: 15:00
1999
During the 1992 Los Angeles uprisings, the artist wrapped himself in wire hanger over a period of four days to meditate on the body's physical and psychic interaction with the legacy of oppression characterizing the experiences of African-American communities in this country.
running time: 5:00
1992
In a comic twist on Maya Deren's "Divine Horsemen", Encounter at Intergalactic Cafe mixes African Spirit possession with the Indigenous American sacred clown tradition to explore the electric juncture known as the cressroads. Saint, comic demon, deity, infant and other entities emerge and literally take over the body of the artist. Three anthropologists are on hand with video camcorders to record their explosive arrival. Sparks fly as Harris gives a language defying mythopoetic rendition of the original encounters between European rationalism and the African/Native America prectise of spirit possession.
