| Bradley as Bradley | Video/Audio | Documenter |
|---|---|---|
| Behind the door in the gallery, becoming himself. | Black screen.
Gil-Scott Heron’s “Pieces of a Man” is remixed. He sings: Jagged, jigsaw pieces… tossed about the room… |
Unceremoniously Present. Camera at the ready. Camcorder above is recording. |
| Bradley as Bradley | Video/Audio | Documenter |
|---|---|---|
| Emerges and traces grid with hands. Prepares to begin his walk. | Fade-in to white from black.
Bureaucracy soundscape begins. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Slowly marching through fields of the grid, with a sense of duty and trepidation. | Bright white screen is sustained.
The sound of pen clicks and paper flicks. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Takes cover from the rain, flicks off the drops. | White rain on gray background.
The sound of a pen click rainstorm. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Approaches the boundary of the grid and prepares to take a step off, but… | The rain passes, a bright white screen persists.
The sound of pen clicks and paper flicks. |
Watching / Capturing |
| A siren of alarm is triggered. He falls back into a cowering huddle in the middle of the row. | Screen flooded with red.
The sound of a deep dissonant sine wave punctuated by hollow buzzing. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Sneaks through the grid under the brief reprieves of darkness. | Nine dips from white to black.
The sound of a pen clicking with a delay on it. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Walks on his tip-toes, balancing inside the form fields. | Scans of tax forms appear on screen. A black line made of a soft brush begins to squiggle along the
form, its shape is his walking path.
The sound of a pen tip impressing upon the fibers of paper; a scratching, an imperceptible cutting. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Reaches the second large row on the grid. Begins to gesture legs in sweeping motions, his feet brushing against the surface. It’s like dancing. He turns his wrists like he’s seen his aunties and uncles do when they dance to Chutney music at parties. | Scans of tax forms continue to appear on screen. The black line continues to grow.
The sound of a pen tip scribbling continues, a cacophony of metallic swishing emerges. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Another attempt — approaches the boundary of the grid and prepares to walk off, but… | Scans of tax forms continue to appear on screen. The black line continues to grow.
The sound of a pen tip scribbling continues, a cacophony of metal, unnerving and plucky. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Another siren of an alarm is triggered–he falls back into the same stance hiding from the beam of red light. | Screen floods red.
Sirens bellow from the deep. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Runs through the rest of the grid, heavy breathing–wanting to escape. Reaches the other corner of the grid from where he began. | Video of Bradley shredding documents is played. The sound is of the machinic teeth pulling on the paper fibers. | Watching / Capturing |
| Bradley as Bradley | Video/Audio | Documenter |
|---|---|---|
| Lifts stand and Bankers Box full of fabrics. | Video of bees flying and pollinating in the backyard of Bradley’s childhood home.
The sound oscillates between recordings of the backyard and the patio of his home. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Lifts and places stand into multiple positions through the grid, where the fabric will be hung. | Video loops.
The sound of the backyard, buzzing bees. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Lifts and cycles through phrases inspired by his father’s labor as a cargo handler:
Alright…. 3, 2, 1, hup! Okay, yeah I got it… I got it. Careful, careful, careful You got it? Remember that time we? (chuckles) nevermind… Yeah yeah, I’m lifting with my back I know… Almost quittin’ time… Oh, I drank too much last night. |
Video loops.
The sound of the patio. The rise and fall of passing cars on the suburban street. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Grows tired… back hurts from the lifting. Fumbling with fabrics, frustrated. Wipes brow of sweat. | Video loops.
Atop the footage, a video of his father mowing the front lawn plays. It is edited to near invisibility. The sound of the patio. The doppler effect curves the sputtering engines like a wave. The sound of the lawnmower’s teeth pulling on the grass fibers. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Lifts stand with a few pieces of fabric remaining in the box.
Just a few more. |
Video loops.
The sound of the backyard, the distant whirr of airplanes passing overhead. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Hangs the final four pieces of fabric. Three are opaque, one is transparent.
Hey, if they come around and start checking… you should go take a walk… The shape resembles a room, one where he can hide or at least so he tells himself. From the front of the room he’s revealed, unable to fully escape from being seen. |
Video loops.
Atop the footage, a video of his mother washing the dishes in the kitchen plays. It is edited to near invisibility. The sound of the patio. The sound of the water running over the dishes. The sound of his mother saying “Don’t video me like that.” |
Watching / Capturing |
| Alright, we’re almost done.
The final piece of fabric goes up, the stand and box are returned to the corner where they were picked up. Finally…. |
Video loops.
The sound of the backyard. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Walks through the pieces of fabric: like an errant breeze between curtains, like a poltergeist, like a memory. He’s both the shadow making an impression and the impressing thing. He ties fabrics, wraps himself in them, lifts and drops them revealing and un-revealing all at once. | A video of Bradley’s immediate and extended family in their home, cutting a cake for his siblings joint
birthday party. A black flame in his father’s hands repeats.
The sound of the original video, its camaraderie and chaos, is band-passed. The frequencies make way for a low humming sine wave mixed with a sample of pen marks. The synthesizer lilts and twists with tinges of almost too much nostalgia, pierced by the precision of pen strikes. |
Watching / Capturing |
| Bradley as Bradley | Video/Audio | Documenter |
|---|---|---|
| Moves into the false room of fabrics.
You want to see me soooo bad! You’re obsessed with me!! You’re totally like “where is he?” Take a picture it’ll- |
A home video begins to play of Bradley’s first diwali in 1997.
No sound is playing. |
Approaches Bradley as Bradley. Camera in hand, he photographs with a fastidious tenacity. The camera shutter sound probes the room. |
| Fine, you want a piece of me? Here.
Sticks his hand out of a corner where two pieces of fabric meet. |
The video is edited only to the blurry bits.
No sound is playing. |
Walks up to Bradley’s outstretched hand and photographs it. |
| Here!
Sticks his hand and leg out of another corner where two pieces of fabric meet. |
The camera fails to capture the light because it is too dark.
No sound is playing. |
Takes the corner around the grid and walks up to Bradley’s outstretched hand and leg and photographs it. |
| Here!
Sticks his face out of another corner where two pieces of fabric meet. |
Video continues.
No sound is playing. |
Takes the corner around the grid and walks up to photograph his face. |
| Gaining confidence and excitement by being seen and by being photographed. It’s erotic. Exits from his room, giving all to the Documenter. | Video continues.
No sound is playing. |
Walks onto the grid and walks closer. |
| Backs away as the Documenter continues approach.
Stop, you got it. |
Video continues.
No sound is playing. |
Pushes forward towards Bradley, clicking the shutter. |
| Backs away as the Documenter continues approach.
Stop, you got it. |
Video continues.
No sound is playing. |
Pushes forward towards Bradley, clicking the shutter. |
| Backs away as the Documenter continues approach.
Stop, you got it. |
Video continues.
No sound is playing. |
Pushes forward towards Bradley, clicking the shutter. |
| Stop. Moves into the false room of hiding. | Video opens on a 3D Photogrammetry model of Bradley’s face emerging from a black expanse. The face is metallic and lit garishly by purple and green hues. | Pauses and photographs him. |
| Exits the room of hiding and slips his head under a central fabric in the grid. He rotates his body 360 degrees, giving all gazes a total image. | The camera takes it all in, curving around the model in 360 degrees, gathering a complete picture. The
camera peers at the mesh from above.
It is greedy. It doesn’t just want to survey, it wants to consume. Its appetite? Unsatisfied until it pierces. It wants my room. It wants my house. |
Begins to seemingly pack up his camera equipment slowly, angered and unwilling to continue. |
| Lays his body flat. | The camera pierces through and through.
It wants my body. It penetrates me, reduces me, flattens me, pummels me. |
Continues to pack up his camera equipment slowly. |
| Raises to a seated position on the floor. | The video ends and cuts to a white screen. | Starts to walk out the room. |
| Hold on, don’t go. I still need you. | White screen persists. | Nods head. Sets up the camera and returns to the position of Watching/Capturing. A fragile reconciliation. |
| Bradley as Bradley | Video/Audio | Documenter |
|---|---|---|
| Wait… I forgot my line. Line!?
Line!? Oh no, this is so embarrassing I’m sorry everyone I forgot my line.
You know I thought this might happen, so I brought my script just in case! Let me see, okay… hmm.. Did that, did that… Wait, it didn't print right… Oh no… A beat. Okay, maybe… can we all agree to forget this happened? Looks to the documenter: Are we still rolling? Okay, yes, I’ll edit this part out of the video and we can all just forget this ever happened okay? Alright, we’ll all just move on to the next part. |
A video montage begins to play footage filmed by his dad. The food prepared earlier, pholourie, chutney,
roti, underneath a series of kitchen towels. He pushes towards other belongings in the kitchen, an
interesting amount of time spent with the details of the oven: its knobs, its coils. The radio set atop
the half-wall separating the living room from the kitchen.
Cut to: streamers hanging from the rafters, birthday signage. It’s unclear if they are anticipating the party or proving it. Cut to: the well-traveled dishes set atop the tablecloth. It's thanksgiving. A collage of chairs round the table potlucked from everyone’s home. Events and objects are all the same to the lens. |
Watching/Capturing |
| Bradley as Bradley | Video/Audio | Documenter |
|---|---|---|
| Moves to the Bankers Boxes and pulls out a DJ controller and laptop from the top-most one, turns on the amplifier. | A video of Bradley shredding the documents his father gave him last December begins to play. The papers are inserted rhythmically in their own time. | Watching/Capturing |
| Begins to mix the interview with his dad about his work life. Fingers press the plastic buttons and softer pads in relative rhythmic time. | Video continues.
The sound of his father’s voice and a drum sequence emerge from the amplifier. |
Watching/Capturing/Listening |
| Hands twist on the turntable wheels. Fingers twist the knobs, adjusting frequencies and effects. | Video continues.
His father’s voice is cut into incoherent parts, creating a sonic mass of the interview, a sonic mass of his labor. |
Watching/Capturing/Listening |
| Places his hands on the volume lever and alternates, raising one track and lowering the other. Hands resemble: the climbing of a staircase–a Sisyphean task; repeating keyboard clicks, and the looping of lifting and dropping. The endless kick drum of having something to do. | Video continues.
The sound oscillates between two excerpts of the interview, his father’s voice rising and falling. |
Watching/Capturing/Listening |
| Loads two drum tracks initially synchronized in time. Fingers on each tempo slider, one moving up, the other moving down. Leaves the drum tracks repeating as he walks away. | Video continues.
Drum tracks are mis-aligned in tempo. The result is a sonic cacophony. The sound of timing not lining up. |
Watching/Capturing/Listening |
| Lifts and moves the wooden panels on the floor, moving and strewing them across the room.
Repeats, at alternating fragmented rhythms, an edited line from Mahmoud Darwish’s poem “I Didn’t Apologize to the Well.” I broke the grid and I broke. |
Video continues.
The oblique sound of meaning not lining up — Sedgwick’s definition of queerness. |
Watching/Capturing/Listening |
| Walks in the spaces between the fragments of the grid. Gathers Bankers Boxes full of paper scraps and
places them on their side atop the separated wooden pieces. The scraps spill out. He pushes them out of
their box, dousing the wood with the scraps.
The boxes are stacked above |
Video continues. | Watching/Capturing/Listening |
| Did we get it?
Packs up DJ Controller, Amp and Computer. Repeats to Documenter: Did we get it? |
Video continues. | Packs up his camera and does not respond. |
| Exits from the door whence he came. | Video ends. Then loops. | Exits from the door whence he came. |