My Happy Placebo

The physical and conceptual anchor of this show, My Happy Placebo, was originally conceived as a commentary on manipulation as it relates to pleasure, seduction, safety, and survival.

My Happy Placebo is a collection of painted white objects, each bearing their own personal significance, arranged and embedded into a series of white, painted pedestals. The minimal installation relies upon a pervasive sonic landscape, engulfing the enormity of gallery space in which it sits, and neon lights, controlled by heat sensors, that attempt to lure, engage, and implicate the audience.

Studies of proxemics and social influence reveal the “implausibility” of our “authenticity,” demonstrating how our emotions, opinions, and behaviors are hijacked by others. My Happy Placebo confronts those influences and the resulting pressures to conform, obey, lead, control, and comply. At its core, this work explores how these themes relate to my own sense of identity, my role and responsibilities as a teacher, maker, and partner, and my irreconcilable human desire to seek both gratification and safety.

The etymology of placebo, to please, reminds us that we design placebos to please and to placate. This universal impulse toward mitigation, and the giving and receiving of pleasure in all its varying forms, is part of our most basic story. Once we reduce this exchange to a story of belonging, the narratives we build in an attempt to construct “our happy place” lead, ultimately, to a story of home.

But what is home? Is it within or without? And can we, should we, dare we, go back again? In lieu of a physical space or person, can we take respite in sound or light? Can they be a home to us?