I am not turned off or frightened by nudity. I feel very comfortable with the human body and all it has to offer (as one would hope from a pre-medical student). Katy Baird's nudity was unexpected and enthralling as she descended to the audience and proceeded to strip, but I was by no means blown away by the shock value of the female figure. The greatest scandal in my opinion was her reliance on drugs and drug paraphernalia for the creation of her work. The artist not only chose to detail her experience with addiction, but also formulate an entire live art piece via personal sentiments, videos, and the like, related to her battle. While it was evident that the artist took the time to accumulate the pieces to put on a show, the performance itself felt like just that: pieces fragmented together to form a semi-coherent monologue with audio-visual aid.
I suppose this may come across as insensitive to substance abuse, and by no means is that so. It seems fitting that perhaps this part of the double bill could fall under the category of disability, similar to the performance following. However, from my educational background, that would be insensitive and incorrect. Of course one's own suffering is a completely subjective experience and should not be categorized by any one person, but in my opinion classifying an addiction (especially an addiction so sever as Baird's) as a disability is wrong. The term disability implies the absence of ability--almost to say that once an addict, always an addict. It goes without saying that even a recovered addict must be vigilant as to not relapse, but to put all those who suffer from addiction under the umbrella of disability sets the current addict up to fail.
Diversion aside, I felt that Baird's piece seemed aimless in a way. While certainly entertaining, I didn't gain all that much from the performance itself. If she were to build upon this piece, I would suggest that Baird add in more direction to guide her confessional. I found this piece surprisingly underwhelming for the severity of the content being described.
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