BAD_W.H.0R, E_D, S was initially developed as a webcam-based performance for the projectPerformance Season / Performance-Art Didactic Festival(2009–2010),a web-based festival conceived by GrossiMaglioni (performing as the Magic Duo) that brought together artists and theorists to explore new methodologies for performance art through an educational and research-oriented framework. By means of live performances, presentations, and forums, the festival explored on-line performances as a tool to rethink boundaries between notions of public and private as well as audiences’engagement with contemporary practices in digital contexts.The performance takes inspiration from the dynamics of erotic chatrooms, with the artists appearing in various disguises and inviting viewers to interact with them, using the same offensive and provocative language normally used to get the erotic performers to undress. Instead of undressing, the artists continue to dress up, creating a short circuit between expectation and performance. By complicating the roles of viewer and performer, the performance confronts questions of agency, desire, objectification and the aesthetics of exposure in virtual space. At the same time, it challenges the participants to reflect on their own position and the effects of their interactions as well as on the processes of subjectivation enacted and reinforced through specific linguistic codes.The performance also addresses the role of censorship and its effects on language, exploring how online censorship fragments and distorts meaning, producing a sort of disintegration of language itself.
