In complete darkness a mouth materialises to pour an epiphany, a buzzing in the head, to feel no pain or pleasure, confusion and acceptance for the reasonless decisions to punish by God.
“stand up woman … speak up woman … stood there staring into space … mouth half open as usual … waiting to be led away … glad of the hand on her arm … now this … something she had to tell … could that be it? … something that would tell … how it was … how she … what? … had been? … yes … something that would tell how it had been … how she had lived … lived on and on … guilty or not … on and on …”
“Not I” (Samuel Beckett)
Working with a dental mannequin was the initial idea for Latex Maid. I’m fascinated by medical equipment, how it works, and its total intimacy with strangers. These objects have a lot to say with prestige in every society. I loved these ideas and how well they complement what the Latex Maid wants to communicate.
I called two medical universities, desperate to get through to a department which would let me buy a mannequin. I eventually got through to the department of nursing for Queen University in Belfast. The conversation was awkward, but they put me in contact with their medical equipment supervisor who was willing to send me two heads from Ireland. A week later they arrived at my house in London. I thought the aesthetic similarities to the mouth in “Not I” was uncanny. I was excited.
I felt very connected to the themes of reasonlessness, torment and jumbled thought in “Not I” I wanted to twist and use these ideas and see how they work in my own life. This is when I came up with the plan to build a personality using the thoughts and opinions of the people around me. I would record the things people would say that would affect me, I would write peoples DJ mixes, things that made me laugh, people they disliked, events they thought were okay. I felt guilty at first even though they knew.
I started feeling like all these small, sometimes mundane statements had a lot to do with how you’re perceived, why people like or dislike you. The Latex Maid turned into something with a profound anxiety, it is someone who is as sinister and malicious as they are sweet and trustworthy.