I Just Want You
to Be Happy - ||
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This is a solo performance based on the previous performance, taking place near a classroom in the Illustration Department at RISD.
The setup includes a projection system, several semi-transparent fabrics, clothing racks, a small cabinet, the performer’s favorite perfume, makeup products, a hair spray, and an intentionally exaggerated outfit. During the performance, the performer moves behind the translucent fabric, applies makeup, styles the hair, and gets dressed. At the end, the performer break through the fabric, encounter the real scent in the space, and spray perfume onto body.
Throughout the performance, the audience is invited to observe from behind a glass wall. There is no physical or verbal interaction between the performer and the audience. However, all sounds—including video audio and live actions—are fully audible, and the sound is projected from behind the audience. This setup creates a layered, disorienting sensory experience.
Building on the previous performance, this project further emphasizes the transitional moment right before leaving home. Actions such as putting on makeup, fixing one’s hair, and dressing—now performed in a way that contrasts with the previous work—highlight a state of pleasing others while neglecting one’s own sensations. Only at the moment of breaking through the fabric and encountering the real smell of perfume does the performer recognize the importance of feeling joy for oneself.
In this performance, the semi-transparent fabric takes on multiple roles. It functions simultaneously as a boundary between private and public space, between caring for oneself and pleasing others, and between the true self and the fabricated self. Its translucent quality allows projected images, unblocked light, and the performer’s body to overlap and merge on the background wall. As a result, different behaviors and attitudes drift between projection and presence, between substitute and body. This layering reflects an internal hesitation and conflict, suggesting that within such blurred boundaries, choosing one side over the other feels nearly impossible. Living within society, it seems we are never able to fully occupy only one position.
Within this context, “I just want you to be happy” becomes both a gentle form of discipline and an ongoing inner struggle. The sense of choice appears to belong to us—yet never entirely.
Positioning the audience behind glass, while placing sound sources behind them, further renders the experience hazy, distant, and uncertain. This arrangement invites reflection: Which version of me is real? The one behind the fabric, performing for others? The one in front of it, attending to myself? The one that breaks through the boundary? The one in the mirror? The layered images overlapping in projection? Or simply the one standing here?
The setup includes a projection system, several semi-transparent fabrics, clothing racks, a small cabinet, the performer’s favorite perfume, makeup products, a hair spray, and an intentionally exaggerated outfit. During the performance, the performer moves behind the translucent fabric, applies makeup, styles the hair, and gets dressed. At the end, the performer break through the fabric, encounter the real scent in the space, and spray perfume onto body.
Throughout the performance, the audience is invited to observe from behind a glass wall. There is no physical or verbal interaction between the performer and the audience. However, all sounds—including video audio and live actions—are fully audible, and the sound is projected from behind the audience. This setup creates a layered, disorienting sensory experience.
Building on the previous performance, this project further emphasizes the transitional moment right before leaving home. Actions such as putting on makeup, fixing one’s hair, and dressing—now performed in a way that contrasts with the previous work—highlight a state of pleasing others while neglecting one’s own sensations. Only at the moment of breaking through the fabric and encountering the real smell of perfume does the performer recognize the importance of feeling joy for oneself.
In this performance, the semi-transparent fabric takes on multiple roles. It functions simultaneously as a boundary between private and public space, between caring for oneself and pleasing others, and between the true self and the fabricated self. Its translucent quality allows projected images, unblocked light, and the performer’s body to overlap and merge on the background wall. As a result, different behaviors and attitudes drift between projection and presence, between substitute and body. This layering reflects an internal hesitation and conflict, suggesting that within such blurred boundaries, choosing one side over the other feels nearly impossible. Living within society, it seems we are never able to fully occupy only one position.
Within this context, “I just want you to be happy” becomes both a gentle form of discipline and an ongoing inner struggle. The sense of choice appears to belong to us—yet never entirely.
Positioning the audience behind glass, while placing sound sources behind them, further renders the experience hazy, distant, and uncertain. This arrangement invites reflection: Which version of me is real? The one behind the fabric, performing for others? The one in front of it, attending to myself? The one that breaks through the boundary? The one in the mirror? The layered images overlapping in projection? Or simply the one standing here?