‘I am writing to ask for your participation in a performance next week in San Francisco. Á Dieu is a performance with Summer Lee in which I am saying goodbye to the city and the arts community (as many of you know, I am moving to Philadelphia in the next month or so). The performance will take place between the French Consul’s home on a hill and participants in Cole Valley that lies below (my neighborhood of 13 years). Candace Huey of re.riddle has curated an exhibition titled After Tomorrow in the home and writes of the exhibition and performance.” — Laura Boles Faw
“I was recently asked to curate an exhibition for the French Consulate in San Francisco about the intersections of art and technology. With that in mind, I invited several artists to examine the various ways in which technology may be applied or implicated in their art, and within their larger cultural context. Summer Lee and Laura Boles Faw created a performance piece that addresses both the themes of technology and the challenges of living and working as artists in San Francisco.” Candace Huey of re.riddle
(Video Documentation by Hoi Leung)
For á Dieu Summer Lee and Laura Boles Faw confront feelings of loss and attempts to connect across distances, taking comfort in the ability to stay connected via various technologies. They address themes of translation, communication, distance, loss of geography/community and additionally a claiming of space and connectivity. In a time when many artists have been pushed out of the Bay Area because of rising costs of living due largely to the dominance of the technology sector, Lee and Boles Faw celebrate the arts community that is still here, and consider the ways that technology connects and distances in spite of its promises.
This performance uses elemental forms of technology to make claims. Boles Faw wrote a goodbye letter to Lee, the city and its arts community with invisible link. Lee, positioned in the window of the house, revealed this message and subsequently, using Morse code, flashed the message out into the city from the home of the French Consul overlooking Boles Faw’s neighborhood of thirteen years. Boles Faw asked her friends and colleagues to stand within the city and signal back to Lee with flashes of light that they are not only receiving the message but also proclaiming their presence and dedication to the supportive and vibrant Bay Area arts community. The participants are artists, arts educators, students, curators, and others who are involved in the arts and who Boles Faw considers beacons of artistic determination.
Lee and Boles Faw contend that this signal is one of hope but should also be a warning for what could potentially be lost if new technologies (and the emphasis on technology over all else) create more distancing than thoughtful, genuine, and nuanced connection.
Thank you to Melanie Piech, Mel Day, Beth Molnar, Michele Foyer, Christy Chan, Hoi Leung and Jen Pearson for participating in this project and thank you to Candace Huey of re.riddle for support of this project.