Yen

Yen is an interdisciplinary artist interested in irony, whose work explores themes such as identity without body, performance from audience, privacy in visibility, and order within chaos.

Project Title: Fake it Till You Make it!: Generative Laughter and Audience Performance

Project Description: Laughter is understood to be a bodily reaction to performance, often signaling to the performer what we may find funny or amusing. But what happens when laughter becomes the subject of performance itself? This paper examines laughter as performance, challenging the social and temporal structure of laughter by detaching laughter from humor to focus not on what makes us laugh but instead how to put ourselves in the mindset to laugh. I argue for the practice of generated laughter as a way to open oneself to that which is funny, applying said practice through the lens of Avgi Saketopoulou’s concept of Limit Consent, Jennifer Doyle’s difficulty, and Nuar Alsadir’s resuscitation through spontaneous laughter. I find that in doing so challenges the perception of real and fake laughter, proving their distinction unnecessary. Through observing my own work in laughter performance, I explore how breaking laughter down to a physical movement still brings forth the politics of both the performer and audience, following the fundamental concept of performance studies that asks not what a performance is but what it does.

Project Inspiration: Laughter Therapy, Laughter Yoga, Humor, Fun

Academic Interests: Generative Laughter, Laughter Performance, Audience and Reactionary Performance