This week, the Herald interviewed sculpture student Peyton Peyton, ART ’20, about her performance piece worms in my mouth again. We discussed the body as a source of inspiration and the kinesthetic knowledge which object-based performance facilitates.

The Yale Herald: Maybe we could start by talking about this piece worms in my mouth again, since it seems like you’ve been working on it for almost your entire time here [at Yale].

PP: The semester before I started, I was thinking a lot about states of the body: “fight or flight” and “rest and digest.” I was thinking about how when you’re stressed out you cannot digest food, and you conserve energy to deal with whatever you’re dealing with. I noticed that in my studio I kept starting things without finishing them, which I think was part of coming here and having so many studio visits, so many people constantly looking at my work — it froze me up. I was having no actual output, and I was like, “What am I doing here? I’m taking in all this information and moving my hands around but nothing’s getting done.” This might be T.M.I., but last semester I got really sick. I was having a lot of abdominal pain and ended up in the hospital for a week with a bowel obstruction and a torsed ovary — literally turned up inside. It was the embodiment of what was happening in my studio: my studio was having a bowel obstruction.

YH: And that’s exactly what ended up happening with this piece.

PP: Yeah, I think it became about the intestines, the process of getting twisted up. After I came back from the hospital, I started making this big tube, this worm thing. The fans on either end of the tube are so loud. When you’re inside the tube, it would seem like the fans would be scary, but that’s actually the best time to be in it; you can move in ways that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise. I had performed in it once and when I got out I remember talking to my partner about how I’d never seen [the tube] behave like it did. It was really tumultuous. He said, “The only thing that changes every time you get in it is you.” I get a totally different performance every time. It moves differently every time. But that was when I realized: I’m digesting myself.

YH: It’s a sort of inverse, as opposed to you digesting the work, having the work consume you in some sort of way… Did you end up conceiving of this piece as a result of your experience in the hospital?

PP: Yeah, going to the hospital was first. In my crit before that, I had [made] this crocheted tube, on the end of which was basically underwear that snap close, like a diaper. There was another one on the other end, so two people could get in it. After making that I knew I wanted to crawl through a tube, maybe for a video. I wasn’t really thinking about it being a performance at first. Then I got the fans, and became really interested in what could happen between the two fans. Even then, I wasn’t thinking about me being between the two fans.

YH: Have you ever considered using performers who are not you to manipulate and use the objects?

PP: Now that I’ve performed in it several times, I do think I can explain to someone how to be in the tube and how to perform in it. But at first I had to spend so much time in the tube to understand how to move in it. I’ve done so many performances in the wrong room, or with too many people, or where I couldn’t get to the wall and write on it or where I didn’t want to write on it. I’ve done it so many times I think I’ve encountered every type of problem I can have. Now I understand the language enough where I can communicate that to someone. I mean, I hesitate because I don’t think that it’s important that it’s me or my body, but I think that the relationship between the body and the object has to be established in a way that I can’t really ask somebody else to do. So I can build that relationship and then explain it to someone, if they want to do it. But you know, it’s something like a language in a relationship that has to be built. And it’s hard. It’s hard to do. It’s not an easy ask.

YH: Do feel like you’ve maintained a certain level of experimentation when you’re performing with the worm?

PP: Well, I’m pretty comfortable with the worm now. I don’t really get as nervous anymore unless it’s a weird room that I didn’t see before doing the performance. But I feel comfortable because I’ve gone through it enough that I know how to handle it when it gets twisted. When I’m in it, I can’t really orient myself within the room, and I’m moving so much that the colors don’t matter, you know? If the fan at my feet turns on but the air doesn’t get to me, I know it’s twisted somewhere between my feet and that fan. So I have to go that way and then find the twists, get in the twist and then roll over. If it’s really twisted I have to see which way it’s twisted and then put my hand in it to see how far it’s gone. So I’m at the point now where I know what to do if things go wrong.

YH: I wonder how you think about the knowledge you’re accumulating from all of this experimentation. You clearly have a really, really intricate and detailed understanding of the ways that one should navigate this tube. But where does that accumulated knowledge or understanding go?

PP: That’s a good question. I mean, I really believe that nothing is true, everything is just kind of permitted. My truth is that I think going through the worm did inform me in my body on some level. My hope is that it fixed my intestines.

Artist Portrait: Peyton Peyton was originally published in The Yale Herald on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.