Maya Suess

According to her website, Maya Suess makes drawings, installations, videos, and performances. Her performative installations use music and playful aesthetics to explore identity, sexuality and personal responsibility. These pictures are from one of her work titled “It It and the Gimme Box, 2009”. The piece is made of three video installations that requires the viewer to participate with the piece. At each “portals” and the viewer must raise their hands in front of sensors which then trigger the screen to play a video. All three of the portals contain a six minute music video sung by a “personified consumer object”. The objects include a house key, a paper trail, and an earbud, and the lyrics of each song tell the story of the object’s lifecycle.

I could not obtain the video to post on the site, but here are a few pictures of the installation, and some of the objects singing in the videos. If you want to see the video go to http://www.mayasuess.com/ and look under “works” for this piece.

The costumes or body extensions are interesting in the videos. On their own they don’t tell the entire story, but by adding the music and lyrics to them you are brought into their lives. The installations themselves look like sculptures, but are meant to be interacted with so you can view the videos. Its interesting to see the different media combined (installation, video, music, lyrics, and the body extensions) into one piece. I think I understand the meaning of the objects and their songs, and how they affect our lives. I’m not sure what added effect is gained by having them at interactive “portals”. I also don’t think I would enjoy holding my arms up to sensors for 6minutes to watch the videos… that’s just my opinion.