“Trigger…Trigger…” takes place over a Zoom call that is live-streamed to an audience. The performance is a narration that interrogates the Gothic Imperialist genre by using vampires as a metaphor to blur the specific, personal, political, and bodily. This is accomplished via the narration of a story taking place between the window and screen that is told through associative linking, found footage, internet searches, and flashbacks. By using a shared screen to open clips and review drawings, I use a confessional mode of narration to explore the fear of blood, invasion, penetration of boundaries, and loss of self-control.

Made remotely during the first UK COVID-19 lockdown, the performance begins with me recollecting my experience of spatial and temporal dislocation that emerged from momentary confinement as well as from living in both the UK and Australia for a long time. The narration then transitions to the seaside town of Whitby, which was the setting of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Whitby also carries the legacy of being the departure point for Captain Cook, which ultimately marked the commencement of Australia’s colonization.