Performances are ephemeral by nature. Although “Playstation” had a number of iterations, I think that the three of us presented it twice together: once at St. Mark’s Church, which is maybe where these pictures were taken; another time, at a bar-slash-performance space somewhere on the Lower East Side where so many tiny, down-and-dirty theaters—Nada, Collective:Unconscious, Surf Reality, House of Candles, all gone now—provided four walls, lights, and seating to artists and other weirdos deemed “experimental.” A little over two years after these pictures were taken, I moved to Los Angeles. There, I figured my rent would be cheaper, and maybe I could learn how to make film. I wanted to play inside a more permanent medium, but I found myself dispirited by how the process felt as automated, as machine-like, as the camera at its center. I long ago lost touch with Judy and Susan, but I know that they, each in their turn, moved to the west coast too. I would like to reach out to them and tell them I have these photographs, and a page in an old notebook I found with vague notes about the postcard announcement, and I want to ask what they recall of that show and the many hours we must have spent rehearsing, but the email addresses I have for them are old now, and the images, blurry as memory.
Images:
—selections from an uncut roll of thirty-six 35mm photographs taken of a performance titled “Playstation,” 1996, created by Judy Elkan, and performed by Elkan, Susan Tierney, and me.
—Notes for a postcard invitation to “Playstation.”
Jennifer Krasinski is a writer and critic, and works as the digital editorial director for Artforum.