Digital Landscapes: Collective Psyche

by jenna beardsley


The digital age is unlike any other time space reality we have previously inhabited. Humanity has grown up and evolved with mass amounts of minute documentation; every detail remains. How do we make sense of all of this information? What holds genuine value and meaning in our collective minds?


I am working in the realm of archiving - snapshots in time coalesce into a larger picture of the moment. Past, present, and future are constantly colliding in the digital realm; I am interested in the convergence. In the same way, the past, present, and future are documented in our physical structures. The body lives as an archiving machine in the same sense that the devices we create do.


The internet is a paradox of freedom and limitation; how do we capitalize on its utopic nature while maintaining resistance to its censorship? Through the use of screenshots, video art, sound design, live performance, and text, I explore the physical body in tandem with the virtual body as a vehicle to accessing collective consciousness and collective memory. Joy and community, tools in resistance to the spiritual, physiological, and psychological warfare of the modern age, are built via combined memory archiving and processing. This webpage lives as a documentation of feeling-states. A live performance element lives as an exploration of embodiment. Together they create the past, present, and future.


 MEMORY ARCHIVE #1 - Intimacy

 MEMORY ARCHIVE #2 -

The Spiritual Trend is Bored

 MEMORY ARCHIVE #3 -

We Watched the World Explode and Now We Live in an Age of Irony

 MEMORY ARCHIVE #3 -

Found My Humanity on a Saturday Night and Now It's a Ritual

Jenna.png

jenna beardsley (they/them)

Born and raised in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., jenna (jay) beardsley is a movement and multimedia artist currently based in so called Richmond, VA, located on the lands of the Powhatan people. jenna attended Virginia Commonwealth University’s Dance and Choreography department, graduating in May 2020 with honors and holding both an Outstanding Choreographer award and the Bobby Chandler Award for Theatre. jenna has performed professionally with the likes of Era Dance Co and Sinclair Ogaga Emoghene. Their choreographic work has premiered around the DMV, most notably at Dance Place's Exquisite Frame showcase in the fall of 2020 and Richmond Dance Festival in June of 2021. jenna is currently a creative fellow with TheRedProjectNYC, directed by Johnnie Cruise Mercer, a dance educator, and provides administrative support to community-oriented arts nonprofits and local dance companies.

Facebook: Jenna Beardsley

Instagram handle: @j_b7777777

Make a donation to support the artists of P/FPF

We want everyone to be able to access the important and timely work in P/FPF, but if you have the means to do so, we encourage you to make a donation to support the artists. All donations will be directed towards the artists. 

Donate