“All Screens Exist in Space: a” is part of a larger series of performances and videos exploring the clunky materiality of virtual spaces and how they manifest. The laptop screen is a surface, a warm mess of pixels and wires and minerals, abuzz with whirring fans. In “All Screens,” this laptop screen is translated into light shot out of an overheating, plastic projector onto a crumpled tarp. This translation makes a space for intervention.

For the performance, a Microsoft Word document with the letter “a” is projected onto a hanging orange tarp. The letter “a” is a funny letter; it comes first in the alphabet, it is comically triumphant, an indefinite article. Instead of being “cleaned up,” the Microsoft Word document is projected exactly as it is on my computer screen, with its busy infrastructure of tabs and commands. The bright light of the projected screen takes on a yellow tinge. Standing behind the tarp, I slice through the material with scissors, cutting both the woven surface and the projected image. The clean “workspace” of Microsoft Word and the water-resistant and dirty tarp fall to the floor. For a moment, it feels like I am slicing through light.

The tarp separates from the projection and falls to the floor. The hole becomes an arbitrary window, adding ragged depth and layers. The “a” lands on the wall behind the tarp, having fallen through to the other side.