I’ve Got to Remember…

I've Got to Remember is a 30-minute solo performance combining live avant-pop songs with prerecorded abstract projections. Dressed in white and silhouetted against pulsing visuals, the performer sings about aging, screen addiction, masculinity, stubbornness, and gratitude — delivering lyrics that toggle between absurdist humor and raw sincerity. Text generated with a Videonics Title Maker 3000 appears on screen in conjunction with the lyrics, the dated technology lending warmth and nostalgia to the contemporary anxieties being voiced.

The piece unfolds as a meditation on time and mortality, cycling through songs that ask: Why does getting older make the waves feel bigger? Why can't I leave the screen? What would it mean to actually take my time? The tone is comedic and tender — lines like "LIFE! it's better than the other thing / DEATH" land as both punchline and genuine plea. The performer experiences these emotions with such exaggerated intensity that the audience is freed to feel them at a distance — laughing at what might otherwise be too painful to face directly, and finding release through that laughter.

Old and new technologies collide throughout — the Videonics Title Maker, a consumer video device from the 1990s, generates text that pulses alongside contemporary projection mapping and live electronic instrumentation. The performer addresses the audience directly, breaking the fourth wall to share observations that feel both deeply personal and universally familiar. Themes of connection, isolation, and the desire to be present cycle through the work, offering both specificity and universality: not to instruct, but to mirror.

Performed at Cassette Bar (Ridgewood, Queens), Purgatory (Queens), and Tubby's (Kingston), 2024.