Confessional Acts. Emerging Sub-Spaces

I first met Cammisa in November 2021 at her performance The Maze, which took place in the context of her exhibition Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary at Galeria Mala in Lisbon, Portugal. In this work, Cammisa incorporated traces that are later revealed even more splendidly in her latest film After Discipline, the subject of this interview. The Maze shows the depth with which the artist integrates parts of her biography into her work. Through a dramatic monologue on her father’s death, she brings up hurt and rage, feelings that plague and torment her throughout some episodes of her life. The acting was perfect; the script heartbreaking. The exposure of other people’s pain is intimidating, and the way it reflects on us shows pain’s universality. Could our monsters be universal?

After getting in touch, I had the opportunity to see Cammisa’s most recent film, After Discipline (2023), which was still a work in progress. An unknown protagonist narrates a series of tragic stories directly into the camera; these entangle us within a deeply dysfunctional family in which the roles of mother, father, daughter, sister and others blur the lines between an apparent normative American family from suburbia  and the perversion and subversion of these same norms and roles. Fourteen hours of footage were cut to a forty-five-minute exploration of gender expression, the American justice system, consensual kink, and narcissistic mothers. Stories also include tales of police surveillance, public sex, closeted sexuality, rural poverty, and growing up in the alternative realities of east-coast Renaissance Faires.

Throughout our conversation, Cammisa told the stories behind After Discipline, including tales of her problematic relationship with her mother and how this influenced and mirrored her in building her own story as she grew up. Her entrapment in her mother’s adoption story has created a distance from the sense of presence and pretense of a healthy family. A variety of references are evoked here, either to justify ideas – as in the case of The Sopranos, a series that  helped Cammisa construct an idea of »normal family« and to conclude that did not have one; or the artist Julia Scher, who assumes a central figure in this narrative. Scher is Cammisa’s true interlocutor throughout the film, playing the role of mother, art mother, dream mother. After Discipline began as a response to Discipline Masters (1988), Scher’s four-hour confessional video in which she tells stories from her childhood and her mother’s influence on her sexuality.

Leonor Carrilho: Your family, story, and identity have always been very present in your work. The idea of an organized, nuclear, and normative family, yet a family destroyed, is a strong influence for you. Tell me more.

Cammisa Buerhaus: I keep trying not to write about my mother, but I have to. She was adopted as a baby. During my childhood, she searched intensively for her birth family, until she found them. I felt like my mother was always looking for a family, which was weird to me because she already had one. I hesitate to write this, but I have to be honest. I was a construct of my mother’s searching for belonging. I would repeat her stories of searching back to her. And then I would tell the stories to other people and say, »Isn’t that exciting, rare, and wonderful?« Lots of psychoanalysis later, I realized that the stories I thought were mine were actually hers. And I should probably go make my own.

In After Discipline, when I ask, »Do you hate me? Do you love me? Or am I convenient for you because you can see yourself through me? Or am I convenient for you, because I tell your stories?,« this is what I mean.

I can explain it another way. About ten years ago, I watched The Sopranos for the first time. I was immediately jealous of the kids, A. J. and Meadow. The Sopranos were a »real family.« Tony and Carmela loved each other and their children, too. T and Carm had hobbies, and lots of friends outside of the family. Tony even talked about his mental health, and went to therapy, and took medication. I thought that Tony Soprano was a great dad. I wished my dad was like that. And then a few years later, I watched the show again. And then, I watched the series a third time. And I realized that the characters inThe Sopranos were not individuals, but instead, a bunch of reflections of Tony.

This was resonant because it matched my image of love, which was, at that time, baby Cammi, a skinny little girl with long hair and dirty feet, chasing the reflection of my parents glimpsed in the rearview mirror of their 1992 Ford F-350. It was a black and silver four-door dually truck, with a bench seat for three in the front and the back. I always sat in the middle.

At that time, I felt the most visible when I processed the emotions of the person I talked to. I made them feel loved because they felt seen. But there are moments when you hate your reflection.

I grew up in a tiny, 200-year-old farmhouse. This is the house Nicola T. Madison and I filmed After Discipline inside of. There was a signpost at the top of the driveway. On it were hung many more signs. Cape Cod: 297 miles, this way. Denver: 1,777 miles, the other way.  The Moon: 238,900 miles, and The Sun: 93 million miles. Those signs pointed toward the sky. My father died in that house. In the month after his death, a new sign appeared at the top of the post. »Welcome to your past,« it read, with no direction given.

Leonor: There is a great proximity to extreme and radical situations like violence or death – not only your death but the death of your generation, as you explain to Julia during the film when you say, »My generation is closer to death, therefore I am too, than you.«

Cammisa: I’ve heard my generation will live longer than my parent’s generation. I don’t know if this is a good thing. Or if it is a true thing. I was told that because I will live longer, I should start using Retin-A, sunblock, and hats in my twenties. So that’s what I did. I also went to therapy. We, (the royal we), invested in crypto and are resigned to wait ten years for it to rise again, so we can cash out on the Ponzi scheme also known as too many people living on the Earth at the same time.

It’s a way to talk around the fear of the world ending. By the time my mom was thirty, she had four children. I wonder if I will ever have children. I’d like to have one or two. But I don’t think I will. How can I, broke bitch that I am, be so selfish as to have a baby just because I want it? Truth is I am selfish, and thank God I don’t have a baby, because selfish people don’t make good parents. But really, can you imagine living so long that all your friends die, and you are 109 years old, stocking shelves in the grocery store? Some say it should happen.

Leonor: Is the desire you speak of to be imprisoned, chained, and commanded by others actually is the desire to be loved?

Cammisa: When I tell these stories, I am talking from the perspective of understanding a domineering personality to be a loving personality. Being bossed around was just how it was, and I was rewarded with love and affection for obeying commands. When I speak of getting slapped around, I am also speaking toward nothingness. In BDSM, there is a state of existence called »subspace.« I’ve been lucky enough to experience it a few times.

Then I did psychoanalysis for years, and I grew out of chasing subspace. I still like getting slapped on occasion, but not everyone can slap the right way. It takes practice, care, and clear communication.

Leonor: Why do you speak to Julia Scher?

Cammisa: Two words. Mommy issues. When I saw Julia’s video, I felt close to her, like a sister. I loved her stories of her family. They were so fun, long, and rambling. It was like a sleepover with your best friend, the kind where you fall asleep talking to each other.

I found myself, as Nicola and I were making this film, lost in the narrative of responding to Julia. I wanted to share stories with her, too. And I did, and I was worried that they were too dark, or boring, or disrespectful. I found myself, as I was speaking, thinking, »Who am I to tell these stories?!«

We were filming in uninterrupted hourlong bursts, in the style of psychoanalysis sessions. Occasionally, as I paused in speaking, Nicola would prompt me by asking questions. But while Nicola was the cinematographer and asking questions, I was speaking to the camera as if it were Julia. We did fourteen hours of taping. As the sessions continued, I began to substitute Julia for my mother. I think it’s called transference. Well, it could also be called projection. Then I began to slip between calling her Julie and Julia. If I had kept going, I might have developed an entirely new name for her.

I wonder if Julia didn’t initially release her films to a wider audience because she didn’t want to hurt her mother or confuse her family. I also know that the art world was a smaller one in 1989. And maybe her mother didn’t make it to the opening. Maybe her mother didn’t even know about it. There is a big joy in Julia’s film. I know there is humor in my film too, but I live in a different time of easy access, and I often felt ashamed as I laid my telling on tape.

I felt like Julia understood me. She moved into making work that engaged explicitly with a fter she made Discipline Masters (1988). She became known for these unsettling interventions, playing with the concept, both theatrically and literally; of security. She made people move and react when faced with video feeds of themselves (Predictive Engineering, 1993–ongoing). Provoking this dance in response to being watched made me feel like I wasn’t the only person so easily influenced by watching someone else. Rather, it made me feel like I had a friend. Julia didn’t give me any answers. But she gave me a model. I felt cared for. And I also felt free, because things she said were sometimes so ridiculous that they couldn’t be real, right?

When Julia made Discipline Masters, she was living in late-eighties New York City. When Nicola and I made After Discipline, which started as a video letter response to Discipline Masters, we were living in 2019 New York City. In late 2022, I finally met Julia as she was installing her exhibition at Kunsthalle Zurich, and she looked shockingly different than she did on tape. As we spoke, all I could think about was the Caterpillar on his mushroom, and I wondered which one of us was Alice.

 

»Who are you?« said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation.
Alice replied, rather shyly, »I – I hardly know, Sir, just at present – at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.«

 

Leonor: Fantasy or fantasies play an important role in your work. What are these fantasies?

Cammisa: Recently, I read a headline about the mother of a girl being found out for harassing, catfishing, and cyberbullying her own daughter. Can you believe it? It’s every girl’s worst nightmare. Sometimes there’s major competition between mothers and daughters. I have some theories as to why. I could tell you those theories, or I could tell you something more fun.

The urge to entertain is constant. How else am I supposed to be loved? I’m not saying it’s healthy, but it works.

Leonor: Could you explain more about your impulse to turn things fun (related to fantasies, dramas, emotions)?

Cammisa: What is life without fun? Sometimes I try to be serious. When I am, I often cry. I think a lot about Buster Keaton, and how his dad made him the performer that he was. His dad had a slapstick show. When Buster was a little kid, he joined his dad’s show, replacing his mother in the role. His dad would kick Buster around the stage, throw him across the room, knock his hat off, flip him like a pancake. I’d say that Buster danced for his dad. And people loved the show.

Leonor: How do you see this work in the future? How do you see this research integrating upcoming projects?

Cammisa: This is my most personal work. I prefer to work with archetypes. I like combining old stories. When I tell them again, people love it. They don’t think about how old the story is. I make and remake the same three plays. The plays change every place they are presented. Sometimes they get bigger, sometimes they get smaller. Sometimes there are ten performers; sometimes just one. These performances hold most of the feelings I want to evoke.

I retell the old stories, and think about belonging. I am also not afraid to expose or humiliate myself in pursuit of entertainment. Jim Fletcher once told me that life is a series of humiliation after humiliation after humiliation. And you know what? It’s true.

I don’t care about epics. I want to share an image and a feeling. In pursuit of this, I take photographs and make films, and they are the documents of my work. Sometimes I rearrange those photographs and make them into sculptures. I think about constructing a memory. I ask myself, what is in the space between the moment and the memory? How do we respond to that space?

I’ll keep making plays. As I keep working, I’m thinking most about how to present my films, photographs, and performances. What happens when the viewing room is your bedroom? Or in your bed, like the audience saw at Scher’s recent show in Zurich.

I think a lot about a secret performance that Chris Burden made. From what my friend Ricardo Valentim told me, Chris was alone in a small room, only accessible at the end of a crawl space in a basement behind a closed door. It was a performance for one person at a time, and no one was allowed to talk about it afterward. This is maybe what happens next in my work. This is the possibility I am following, which is the method of intimate connection between the work and the audience.