HCL Commission

Included as a part of Chicago Takes 10 | Supported by the Walder Foundation

Chafe The Swallow Back_mvmt4machinevision_1 (CTT cut)

Courtney Mackedanz is motivated by people who have a joy-driven and playful capacity to move around, through and with creative constraints. She considers the question of the moment: how do people in  communities of care, who move with each other in abundance, protect their abundance from being fracked by the hands of a carceral system? Chafe The Swallow Back is a movement-based performance study that is  critical of and attempts to address the ways in which the embedding of surveillance technology in cities like Chicago—especially in the wake of COVID—reconsolidates power instead of dispersing healing resources within communities. The massive investments everywhere in a wide variety of technologies is the crucible. This dance in counterpoint explores people’s poetic and embodied resistance. 

Lighted by the throw of projected imagery, a figure performs choreography generated in response to  rehearsal with a machine vision simulator. The simulator aids the dancer to create shapes that are less likely to trigger the algorithm that CCTV surveillance cameras use to discern whether a figure falls within the frame of  the feed monitored. Movement that evades capture in rehearsal becomes the material performed. A danced  expression of the abundance that the camera was not programmed to recognize.

With collaborators: Emma Ladjij (performance), Maxime Chudeau (video/scenics), and Chris Wood (sound).

About the artists

Courtney Mackedanz is a multidisciplinary artist living in Chicago. Her projects infuse critical research, creative writing, and playful object making, with experiments in collaboratively devised performance. Her current  project, Chafe The Swallow Back, is an erotic sci-fi exploration of themes of AI surveillance, machine listening, embodied modes of resistance, and the sensual yet seditious potentials of sounding a hoarse voice. 

Mackedanz has presented work in Chicago (Links Hall, ACRE Projects, High Concept Labs), New York City (Knockdown Center), Montreal (The Darling Foundry), and Shanghai (Basement6). She has been an artist in residence at Nave Proyecto, Lijiang Studio Residency, Summer Forum for Inquiry and Exchange, Landing 3.0, CoMISSION Residency, ACRE Residency, Ragdale Foundation, and High Concept Labs. Mackedanz holds a BFA in Performance and Visual Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Maxime Chudeau is a visual artist + educator based in Chicago. He crafts animated films alongside visuals and videos for music/performance based projects. After graduating with an MFA from the scenography dept. at H.E.A.R. (Strasbourg, FR, 2015), he worked in Paris in the fields of Theater and Art Direction. Since 2020, he works in Chicago, where he teaches and develops collaborative projects.

Emma Ladji uses performance and sound to propose a limitless, speculative definition of identity and explores how it can be shaped and transformed by nature and technology. Emma has been an artist in residence at Links Hall in Chicago and presented work at the New Now Festival in Amsterdam. She will be an artist in residence at Villa Lena Foundation in Italy and is a 2021/22 Ragdale Foundation Fellowship recipient where she will be using plant biodata, vocals, and field recordings to create an album and performance piece.

Additional information

Chafe the Swallow Back is a project profoundly indebted to the artistic, energetic, and intellectual labors of the artists, scholars, and activists who are much more informed and have come before me including: Jackie Wang, Simone Brown, Ruha Benjamin, Nora Khan, Assia Bendaoui, American Artist, Ayesha Hameed, Martine Syms, Zach Blas, and The Lucy Parsons Institute—along with an ever-growing list unfolding as the project continues to develop. The machine vision simulator was developed in extensive collaboration with Chris Wood. Initial research and support came from discussions with Kim Nucci and Miguel Perez.