I'm always productive. I'm always sociable. I must always function.
I'm never productive. I'm never sociable. I will never function.
The set for I MUST ALWAYS FUNCTION!!! @ Barnfield Theatre
Durational, interactive live performance.
After 19 years of a “living hell” with ADHD without knowing, at the age of 20, I finally became the most functioning person ever, thanks to a late diagnosis of ADHD and a Concerta prescription. For the first time in my life, I felt productive, I felt sociable, I felt what it is like to be normal and, dare I say it, on the way to being what people may recognise as happy and successful.
That is, until the national ADHD medicine shortage hit me at the beginning of this year. Being on and off (mostly off) my medicine, I'm back to the ‘non-functioning’ person that I have always been. I still try my best and keep on masking, but every day it gets more difficult - and sometimes, when I try too hard, I simply end up burnt out, collapsing and "rotting" away in my room all day.
As part of my ongoing experimentation with live art, I’m taking this opportunity to present the most honest state of an ADHDer masking and functioning through life. Behind a masked, almost dissociating life of ‘rainbow and cookies’ with a cute virtual character in a pink, fantasy world in Unreal Engine - I’m situated ‘repulsive’ reality of my messy dark room and an overwhelmed mental state. For an entire day, while my virtual self maintains a happy image on a big screen for the outside world, my physical self lies in a mess, operating my virtual self with a mouse and keyboard as if I’m playing a game.
The projected virtual self
The messy physical self
A glitchy version of the sample. The virtual masked self is intentionally not well-functioning.
I also spoke in "AI" text-to-speech voice + the character was lip-synced with the voice.
