OCTOBER 17, 2015
PREFORMANCE BEGINS at 5:00pm
Project Description
HEART/BEETS explores the relationship of physiological, affective and cognitive states, and the effect each has on the other. It pretends to reflect upon love seen through the eyes of Neuroscience, “Misattribution of Arousal Theory” and using Garcia Lorca’s “Blood Wedding” as a framework that represents love’s strict protocols based on societal principles-infused with catholic tradition which dictates females behavior. Themes such as marriage, virginity, monogamy and fidelity are touched upon by Lorca and compared with “The Effects of Beetroot Juice Experiment” and “The Capilano Suspended Bridge Experiment” in an interactive way. The main goal is to create awareness about the way each individual function and then relates and affects others.
HEART/BEETS is a multidisciplinary project that studies Love from a scientific perspective in a creative and artistic experiment. In a performance, Araujo in collaboration with Tyler Ashley seek to confront public members through physicality, music that includes Araujo’s own heartbeat, immersive interactions with audience members and photography and videos made by the artist utilizing hearts and beets blending the line of reality and metaphorical worlds. She invites audiences to use what is given in the present moment and add it previous experiences to access deep awareness.
Creating awareness and consciousness are Araujo’s main interest. Araujo uses diverse media to focus stimuli to be experienced by each sense individually. Once awareness is awakened, there is an invitation to re-experience and engage all the senses as a collective. Through a contemplative practice of sensation, audiences can observe affective and cognitive process triggered by the external world. Senses, sensation, perception, awareness and consciousness is the path Arantxa Araujo suggests for mindful presence. Araujo attempts to spark curiosity in observers about theses processes to scrutinize about the relation of the exuberant world of stimulants and the inner personal journey of perception and its role on defining behavior.
As a multidisciplinary project, Araujo not only incorporates film, theater, photography, performance and installations with original music; but also incorporates her expertise in Yoga, Theater, Neuroscience and her upbringing as a catholic woman in Mexico City to share personal and professional experiences, and merge the world of Science with that of Art with strong passion hues and possibly a tasteful beetroot juice shot.
She encourages active participation of audiences where they become inhabitants of this world. Audience members are asked to write a piece and leave it in a “shrine” to explore the theme of detachment and ritual.
