Love Letters to Jeremy / Let them Eat Yellowcake (2010)
This video made in 2010 is derived from a performance, conceived in two parts to be shown simultaneously in Iran and outside Iran.
In Part I, Love Letters to Jeremy I am on the outside of a window looking in. I steam the window with my breath and write words backward onto the glass, English words such as on-the-edge and tee-ter, that indicate a position that does not fit-in or conform to a standard. As each word sequence begins to fade, I wipe it with my hand and blow onto the window to write again. With each word, I become light-headed due to the heavy breathing and you can visibly see me getting kind of faint. I call it Love Letters to Jeremy because I was writing to my only live audience, Jeremy Rall who was the videographer.
In Part II, Let Them Eat Yellowcake, I perform inside the café looking out. Yellowcake is slang for enriched uranium. I write backward in Farsi with whipped cream onto the window in order to communicate with the outside. The words that I write play with language and have multiple meanings. After each word is written, I lick the cream off of the window. With this set of words, I maintain a certainty and awareness. I'm wearing hijab in this video because it was to be shown in Iran.