Hello, I am Machine Dazzle, and I am an emotionally-driven, instinct-based conceptual artist, designer and musician.
Today I'm going to talk about the power of transformation through the sacred ritual of costume. With the help of my friend Matty Crosland. Matty? Oh, hey, girl.
(Laughs)
Matty is going to hand out a few seeds of possibility while I continue.
Growing up in Middle America, I wasn't allowed to be who I was. I was discouraged from a career in the arts. When we went to the toy store, my two brothers would run to the black and blue aisle and I would run to the pink aisle. There was a lot of shame surrounding my preference for "girls'" toys. I shoplifted my first Barbie. Desperate people do desperate things.
But what was really happening during that time is I was building up a massive reserve of ideas, unrealized desires and dreams. And when I bought that one-way ticket to New York, which is the first decision I ever truly made for myself, I brought with me that reserve of unrealized dreams, desires and ideas. And that's when I really started to take risks. And I learned about the power of transformation, starting with becoming my true self.
In 2019, I was commissioned by Guggenheim Works and Process to do a show. I knew immediately that I wanted to make a show about my mother, Deborah. Here she is, printed on my dress. It was the '60s, the bouffant, the cat-eye frames. Maybe some of you remember. Sadly, I lost my mother in 1996 to cancer. So in her honor, I created a rock and roll cabaret. It features songs that I wrote and sang about her, my relationship with her and my self-actualization. It is called "Treasure," and you can listen to it on your favorite streaming service. In fact, I just released the first dance track from it. It's called "Understand," and if you like to wiggle your peach, then you should look it up.
(Laughter)
My opening outfit, I created this big '60s bouffant. It is made out of about 2,500 metallic pipe cleaners. Why pipe cleaners? Because wigs are common. And I like to challenge existing systems and take risks. And it is actually quite heavy. Transformation takes commitment.
Did I mention that my work is maximal? We are complex beings. We exist in many layers. Speaking of layers, then I added this swing coat. It's made out of an old American flag camouflaged in paint, dye and adorned with flowers. Flowers that I found in the dumpster at the cemetery where my mother's ashes are buried. Yes, people take fake flowers off of the graves, throw them into the dumpster to put new fake flowers on the graves. I thought it was appropriate. And so there it is, a source of protection.
On stage, I became not my mother, that wasn't the point. I became a higher version of myself. Not man, not woman. Something other. In this show, I'm hoping to realize all of my dreams and not just mine, but all of my mother's, too, because she had them. More is more. One of my -- yes, I wish you could all have them, but you know how it is.
(Laughter)
Pom pom on head, look at that. One of my most maximal projects to date is with my favorite collaborator, Taylor Mac. Together with hundreds of others, we created a 24-hour show. It is called "24 Decades: A History of Popular Music." It premiered in Brooklyn at St. Ann’s Warehouse in 2016. It's a 24-hour show. It starts in 1776 and goes to the present day. Every hour of the show is dedicated to a different decade in American history. For every decade, I created a costume that is conceptually adjacent, not historically accurate. Why? Because traditional historical costume already exists, conceptually and otherwise. And I like to break traditions and invent new ones. And when you break an egg, there are countless ways to turn it into something delicious.
So it’s high noon in Brooklyn at St. Ann’s Warehouse. It's the top of the show in 1776, right after we freed ourselves from the British in the United States. And inspiration came when I was walking in Brooklyn, where I live. I was passing this laundromat. What were they doing? They were taking down these old, plastic, grand-opening flags. What were they doing? They were putting up new plastic, grand-opening flags. Well, I snatched them out of the garbage because, you know, and I noticed how weather-worn and brittle and fragile they were. And I got to thinking about the end of the American Revolution and how tattered and torn and broken everything must have been. And then it hit me. This costume wants to tell a story. An illegitimate child of colonialism ran away from home to New Orleans and opened the laundromat called Lou Washery, and they are celebrating the Grand Overture as the official, unofficial cheerleader of the original 13 colonies.
This is maximalism. Not only is it layer upon layer aesthetically, it's idea on top of idea conceptually. It becomes its own story, almost that you can almost read like a book.
Well, if history has taught us anything, it's that things change. Here we are an hour later in the show, and it's time for a costume change. An apple pie as a headdress. The care and the craft and the smell of home. And I put two pipes on Taylor's back, upholstered in a colonial fabric, steam was coming out of them at the top of that decade. But you know how it is. And they represent the invention of the steam engine, which gave way to westward expansion, for better or for worse. And then I thought, well, what else was happening? Well, George Washington was president at the time, and I was always kind of into his little cherry tree story of virtue. You know, "I cannot tell a lie, I chopped down that cherry tree." And it was the French Revolution across the pond and the guillotine was like, full on. So I was like, "Well, why don't I combine them together?" And, oh, you know, severed heads in cherry tree drag as garment.
What I'm getting at is, the costume can be so much more than the costume. It can be the props, it can be the set, it can tell its own stories, it can even be its own character. It can be all of it at the same time. This kind of maximalism leaves an audience completely satisfied, yet wanting more at the same time. More is more.
Well, wouldn’t you know, now it’s 7pm at night, and it's time for the Civil War. I took two distinct inventions from this time to help tell this story. I read somewhere once that the American hot dog evolved out of German immigrants selling their bratwurst and rolls on the streets during the 1860s. Well, I like that. And then this distinctive barbed wire, you know, barbed wire, a symbol of separation, security, insecurity. Well, I wanted to combine the two together. In this way of making things, I bring order to disorder. By turning barbed wire into hot dogs, what I'm trying to do, hopefully, is eat through what is separating us, in this case, slavery.
When you believe in something that is marginalized and goes against the mainstream of society, it is so important that you do it big, bold, brave and unapologetically, truly.
OK, well, here we are after the war again. It’s time for Reconstruction. And, you know, how about the invention of the typewriter? I love the way this piece wiggles as Taylor clicks across the stage. And then the introduction of dynamite and toilet paper on rolls, how domestic! Well, I took those empty toilet paper rolls, and I painted them to look like sticks of dynamite and boom -- headdress, hello. You know, why not?
Well, here we are. Now, we've been performing all night. We're tired. It’s 10am. It's the 1980s. Just in time for the AIDS pandemic. Taylor wears two white, high-heeled shoes sprinkled with little green pom poms. They look like clown shoes, but they represent the white blood cells being attacked by HIV.
This collaboration, this "24-Decade History of Popular Music," took maximalism and "more is more" to a whole new level. I have to say, through the music, the storytelling and the transformative nature of the costumes, we changed the course of queer history. And if nothing else, it sure is fun to pull an all-nighter with 24 costume changes.
Well, here we are. This is an image of me on the streets of New York City at the Easter Bonnet Parade several years ago. I am a fan of taking my art to the streets. But I have to tell you, it takes a little bit of courage to dress like this in public, particularly these days. Just about every part of my creative ethos is under attack in the United States right now. On first glance, you might see an over-the-top outfit on a Sunday, in black and white and pink. But upon closer inspection, you'll see the details, the skull peeking out, the skeletal hand creeping out of the innocent plush animals on my head. I once had my Easter bonnet ripped right off of my head in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Not this one. I don't think they would dare.
Sometimes, I think that life is about overcoming all of your greatest fears. Life itself is how you go about that. I go all the way. I do the work. There is no happiness that I know unless I am risking something. The only true happiness that I know comes from this sense of accomplishment, by taking the risk.
Well, here I am again on the streets of New York, this time for the Reclaim Pride March back in 2019 again. A good friend gave me really good advice once. "Machine, it's never too early to be pre-revolutionary, and it's never too late to be post-apocalyptic chic."
(Laughter)
Sometimes this course of action, this transformation, is the most honest action that you can take. You owe yourself honesty. I consider it a prayer. Today, after all, is a placeholder for what's coming tomorrow. By becoming other, you avoid labels. You can change someone's life just by walking across the room because you are changing what is possible in their minds. Be more. You will get more out of life. And not just for you, for everyone around you. I'm telling you, that is the Gospel truth.
Another thing I wanted to say, this collective land of make-believe that we are in right now, this is very fertile, very creative space where anything is possible. Matty, let's bring it home.
(Music: "Miss Object of Desire" by Machine Dazzle)
Mother, I want to be Miss Object of Desire
A walking dream, a Phoenix lips of fire
Strange reflection in the perfumed air
Changing faces till she settles where a memory vibrates
Liberation
(Applause)
(Music continues) Broken glass and my dress is torn
Screaming in silence
Thank you.
(Laughs)
(Music continues)
(Applause)
Mother, I want to be Miss Object of desire
A walking dream, a Phoenix lips of fire
