ELISE
GOLDSTEIN

The Deathwatch

… because I could not touch what did not belong to me. But the vigil tick spoke, saying, “We must all swallow ourselves whole. Whatever remains will go on without our permission."

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Sculptural archive of 119 tissues accompanied by immersive/responsive sound design
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The Act:

• The artist visited 19 funerals of strangers

• She observed mourners silently and anonymously

• She discretely took written notation of their body language, gestures and movements

• She covertly collected used and discarded tissues

• She commissioned a biochemical lab to expose the tears and mucous with metachromatic stain to render mucus visible (appears as light purple on the tissues).

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The archive is accompanied by a sound installation of the artist quietly reading her notes of the body language notations.

Such a small thing...
Such a quiet disaster.

Performance (1 hour); Video (11 min)

Hosted by Rymer Gallery

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Before witnessing the scheduled slaughter and butchering of this sheep (the following morning), and in full knowledge of its imminent death, the artist tries in full sincerity to allow an emotional connection with the animal to develop and an attachment to grow.

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Her aim, over the course of an hour, was to find and sustain eye contact with the sheep, and to observe any resistances, distress or blockages that arise in the efforts to let this creature and its death enter her. 

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The head of the sheep was not recuperated, and she could not allow it to be thrown away. Consequently, she took it home and kept it in her freezer - uncertain how to let it go, or what to do with it. This went on for several months (during which time the freezer, and by extension the kitchen, was like a kind of mausoleum). Eventually it was taken to be cleaned by flesh-eating beetles. The skull was exhibited with the video projection.

Open Seclusion

Performance Duration: 2 hours

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Hosted by the Sidney R. Yates Gallery

In an attempt to induce anxiety and frustration, the artist uses immersion therapy for the treatment of her own phobia, blindness.

She is locked into a blindfold that cannot be removed without a key and searches through 4 beds, attempting to find the only key of over 300 that can unlock her.

Assisting performer, Stephanie Victa, invites audience members to assist her in the search and collection of keys. 

In this context, the theatricality of the frame provides sufficient anonymity and distanciation for the artist to allow herself to feel fully her emergent panic, and for the oublic to sustain an ambiguous relationship with her urgency in the search.

She never found the key and had to be cut out of the blindfold following the 2 hour opening.

Case Study

Video Installation: 12 minutes

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Hosted by the Sullivan Galleries

Viewers are invited to sit alone in a small room at a small table and listen to the whispered story of the artist's most private and vulnerable childhood experience - sat before a child-like sugar-sculpted model of the environment in which it took place.

A sack of sugar hangs in a white stocking from above, casting a shadow over the scene. The shadow begins circling as the story's events intensify. The same words are projected on the wall - black on white, distant, sterile. The visitor in the chair (alone) hears the story. The passersby read the same story and see the same motions projected on the side wall while walking before the entry - but without the intimacy of sound, the proximity to the scene, or the posture of seated engagement: to the passersby, the fragility remains inaccessible. The content is identical. The intimacy is not.

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This uncharacteristically formal work plays with exposure, clinical distance, and diagnostic reporting.

Dividing the Leftovers

Hosted by Living Room Collective

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This performance involved serving pie to gallery goers according to the following script:

SERVING Script:

“By receiving a piece of apple pie for consumption and enjoyment, you must agree to throw the ceramic dish once the slice has been finished. Throw it hard against the wall until it shatters.

Before doing so, please note the unique pattern of your dish, as all dishes are unique.”

The viewer is served a slice of pie with or without whipped cream, upon an individual ceramic saucer. 

POST Script:

After shattering the dish, individuals are instructed to collect a shard of their unique dish. It is then placed in a sandwich bag with both the recipe and the history of the pie for the viewer to take home.

The HISTORY of the PIE:

A former patient, treated for acute postpartum depression 18 months ago, is awaiting her first appearance in court today. I received a call from her current therapist on Sunday, November 1st, requesting a consultation regarding a blackout the patient suffered several days prior. The patient, while sitting at the dinner table with her mother, while her infant child was asleep in the next room, reputedly threw her plate against the wall, picked up a shard and began stabbing her mother in the chest. Her mother has been in the ICU until this morning. She has survived the attack but due to her condition has been unable to describe the event. My former patient did not recall what happened, except that she “came-to,” saw her mother was bleeding and unconscious, then immediately called an ambulance. Her current therapist asked for assistance in restoring the patient’s memory of that evening. I responded by asking the patient what she and her mother were eating at the time. The patient answered: apple pie. I then requested that her therapist ask the patient for her mother’s apple pie recipe. Through the process of recalling the recipe, the patient’s memories returned. As this session was recorded, I obtained her mother’s recipe and used it to bake these pies. 

Transference

Hosted by The Breathing House

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Because when I promised to cover every inch of you with my mouth, I never imagined you would stay so still for so long. 

Performance Duration: 3 hours

The experience of affection offered and returned is a known comfort. Equally familiar to most is the sensation of a caring gesture rejected. The choice to give, receive and reject another’s tenderness reminds us of our own agency. This piece questions the line of exchange by asking: What does it mean to offer affection to an entity that cannot return it? What does it mean to be affectionate with something that cannot pull away?
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After working as a therapist in both inpatient and outpatient psychiatric care, the artist applies her experiences in acute psychological intervention, and her ongoing interest in the transmutation of mental illness while exploring issues of trauma, recollection, intimacy and transference.

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The Act:
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The floor is covered in flour. The artist's pockets are filled with charcoal. The artist's lips are covered in vaseline.
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The artist reenacts a compulsive behavior exhibited by a former artist patient of a psychiatric hospital: the caressing and kissing of the walls. The patient engaged this act passionately with her eyes closed for hours. In this performance, the artist does too - in an earnest attempt to better understand the universe of her patient. The materiality of the black and white powders tracks both the passing of time, and the blending of these two worlds - the reality in which her feet are grounded, and the transference she pursues in the quest of understanding another person's most intimate inner experience. 

The Poetics are Always Inadequate

“For you were within me, and I was outside myself; and it was there that I sought you.”

Saint Augustine - Confessions, Book 10 Chapter 27

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THE ACT:
After entering the church,
chisel off a piece of stone from the building and wood from a pew.
Place both in a corked vial.
Kneel on the pew and insert the vial.
Masturbate until reaching orgasm.

Preliminary information:
These recordings document an act repeated in three churches* in Venice, along with some personal conversation with a dear and trusted friend.

(please note that the audio accompanying the video is of a sexually suggestive or explicit nature)

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Performed at Madonna dell’Orto (Cannaregio), Santa Maria Del Rosario (Dorsoduro) & Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta (Torcello)