Catnap433

So my performance art project consist of me taking a short nap.  If Tilda Swinton can sleep in a glass case and Marina Abramovic can sit and stare at her audience and can call it performance art than my project is in the same vain.  My piece is called Catnap433 because I take a short on and off nap for 10 minutes at exactly 4:33pm Pacific Standard time.  This performance was taken at the Columbia Center Mall in Kennewick, WA.  I hardly ever get enough sleep because I am kept busy with full time employment, full time parent/husband, and full time student so I'm always tired.  Once in a while I doze off during the day for a few minutes.  Cats are known to take a quick nap, wake up and then go back to sleeping for a block of 5-20 minutes and my behavior in the mall reflects that.  I had my wife video record me while I was resting on the chair in front of a busy crowd of shoppers and patrons.

The reason I had my wife record me while I was asleep was to have visual evidence that the world does not stop for me or anyone else.  The world continues to live on even when I close my eyes, feeling like I faded away into absence.  As you can see, many shoppers, walkers, chatters, and so on kept on doing their business while I had no care in the world.  Along with that, I sense that it was the same in other parts of the city, state, nation, and world.  My video is juxtaposed with pictures, news clips, and videos of what happened throughout the world during my 10 minute nap.  I have visual evidence of exactly where I was and what I was doing when North Korea threatened the safety of foreign embassies, President Obama apologizing for an inappropriate remark, Jay-Z visiting Cuba, and Sergey Brin driving around in a pink Batmobile. The performance displays the insignificance of my actions and others as well.  The actions only matter to the people affected.  The juxtaposed videos may show my sloth behavior but the other people's actions did not directly affect me either.  The audience can interpret all the cues of human behavior through this piece but in essence,   I may have taken a cat nap but the world never sleeps.


Catnap433 from Ken DelaCruz on Vimeo.