Dan Boehl
emoemoji : bear is a visual performance that operates by invoking surprise and soulshame, a vulnerable emotional state within us connected to our appetites and desires. The GIF poems combine flickering images and text, in most cases appropriated from third party sources. By reading the poem superimposed over the GIF image, the viewer is transformed into the performer.
The performer must decipher the text by moving the printed reticulated image back and forth as she reads.
The movement of the images heightens the sense of surprise in the performer as the full ramifications of the text reveal themselves through the repeated movement of the images. The surprise and discovery of soulshame in the performer has a transitive effect upon the audience.
By decontextulizing popular and hyper-realistic images from the web and refocusing their meaning through superimposed text, emoemoji : bear seeks to create a state somewhere between Maryln Minter and “abuse of power comes as no surprise.”