RBG/GDR/RGB

Ruth Bader Ginsberg/Great Diurnal Range/Red Green Blue

December 12th, 2020 was the 20th anniversary of Bush vs. Gore, when the Supreme Court was made to make a definitive decision on the outcome of the 2000 election. It is also when Ruth Bader Ginsberg made her famous “dissent” statement, writing from the minority position “I dissent” rather than the traditional “I respectfully dissent,” in protest of the outcome. RGB/GDR/RBG is a durational performance, a brutal engagement with time, and an opportunity to meditate on everything that has changed and been lost this year. On December 12th, artists Meghan Moe Beitiks and Ray Oppenheimer sat on opposite coastal states with significant electoral votes: Florida and California. Using the projection design program Isadora, the artists projected an image of Ginsberg’s “Dissent” collar on their own collarbones. The images of the collar changed in color (RGB) based on the date from their collaborator’s tides. In California, Ray’s collar changed according to Florida tides– in Florida, Moe’s collar changed according to California tides. The performance lasted 34 minutes –one minute for every additional electoral vote Biden received over Bush’s 271 electoral votes. The tidal data was drawn from predictions for levels between December 12th, 2020 and January 1st, 2021. The work included audio and video from cultural ecologies at each site, images of election data and moments, and significant patterns from Ginsberg’s legacy. Beitiks and Oppenheimer enacted meditative spaces and gestures as a reflection on changing tides. 

Great Diurnal Range is the difference, in tides, between the height of mean higher higher high water and mean lower low water. RGB is the standard color space for digital screens: Red, Green, Blue.