Juliana Broad
(click here)
I open the window and type her name and in purple I am reminded that I have been here before and I remind myself to disable autocomplete YouTube tells me that I can Remove her name but that’s not what I want to do YouTube I want to repeat her I just don’t want to be so self-aware the first video is her and the title is purple too I tap my trackpad and she approaches me her image expands and fills my screen
bottom right corner five more Views five more performances perhaps on different screens perhaps on the same screen for a single person that I do not want to think about my screen does not separate but unites my time and her time which to her was seven years ago but to me is now a now nearer than my tired eyelids a now which does not end with each clock tick a now that terrifies me
I forget who I am and where I am
she is a performance artist and do not think I mean porn star do not think I mean dancer by that I just mean that the comments are not disabled and include “disgusting human being” and “sick bitch” and “untalented and useless” these I am sure are not the most unthoughtful ways of punishing a woman to destroy how we think about women as art only they could have concluded that these things made her a disgusting human being perhaps she was also disgusting because at the end of the performance she was still wearing all of her clothes
seeing her I want to pause her I want to repeat her motioning with my cursor I am above her tapping rewinding
unwinding
the collapse of the space between us parting the curtains again and again which if they close will tell me that I have watched her one more time I pull back the button to keep that toll in check to make sure there is no evidence to keep my time and her time anonymous not accounted for in aggregate five hundred and eleven views when I begin and five hundred eleven when I close the window
fast forward
I see her I blush and I do not look for too long.