On March 13th, 2011 at 9:00PM, I presented my multi-media artist-talk, Object/Fetish: Staging the Suspension of Disbelief in Every Day Life at Club Sapien, a short-lived inclusive queer nightclub known for its community outrech in Calgary. My presentation of Object/Fetish was made in conjunction with the Calgary Animated Object Society (CAOS) and their International Festival of Animated Objects.
In Object/Fetish: Staging the Suspension of Disbelief in Every Day Life I question how fantasy fuels the way we interact and perform with objects in our daily lives, why some people fall in love with objects or end up marrying the Eifel tower, and where sex toys and animism intersect. In looking at the underpinnings of the suspension of disbelief, I examine how objects are and can be fetishized in everyday life. In Object/Fetish I explore media from the margins of what is traditionally thought of as puppetry and object theater for the consumption of theatrical audiences in areas that include masking, furrie fandom, object sexuality, and the rise of artificial companions.
Also while in Calgary, I performed Fudgie’s Death at the Dolly Wiggler Cabaret (venue) and introduced a screening of Handmade Puppet Dreams at the Plaza Theatre