Saw Trap Reflections

This performance was conceived and nursed by the minds of myself and my roommate/best friend/everything. Though I wish she could have participated in the Saw Trap with me, I wouldn’t wish that upon people I love—maybe for my enemies though.

The endurance test consisted of sitting through 10 movies from the Saw franchise which adds up to just over 16 hours of screen time. Aside from the fact that I am a fan of the Saws (and scary movies in general), my motivations for the performance are rooted in my own sick relationship with media consumption. As someone who constantly has a TV show playing in the background—like white noise—I have grown dependent on media to perform mundane, necessary human function. Brushing my teeth, a Netflix reality show is on. Boiling water, HBO’s Girls is playing. Even while I paint, Hulu is spewing out of my phone speakers with a true crime/cult documentary. I don’t watch or really grasp any of it. This relationship to media is very passive and intertwined with the more boring parts of my existence.

Subjecting myself to my own Saw Trap I am forced to be active in my watching practices. The content is extreme, the length of time is extreme, and the conditions of my watching (being surveilled in real life and online) are extreme. I was hoping to pervert the experience of leaving shows on and spare my future self from a TV dependency. I failed. Watching 16 hours of Saw was so incredibly easy. Anyone could do it. I still watch something to fill up the silence of chores. And now one last thing and then I swear to god I’ll shut up about this forever, but I don’t always want to think, sometimes all I want is to watch people get their limbs ripped off for 16 hours.