shawné michaelain holloway

.Scheduled(VariableRatio):secondary-conditioned- immediateReinforcement(s)- handler Search1_DrillAndPractice.exe_Companion4.1 is part of shawné michaelain holloway’s ongoing Chambers Series (2017–present), which is comprised of performance scores and their partner publications. Inspired in part by Donna Haraway’s book The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness, the project explores the dynamics of BDSM acts and, in particular, puppy play. Puppy play involves one person taking on the role of the pup and another person taking on that of the handler, and acting out a scenario not unlike a human training a pet or a person programming a computer.

.Scheduled(VariableRatio):secondary-conditioned- immediateReinforcement(s)- handler-Search1_DrillAndPractice.exe_Companion4.1 is the fourth of holloway’s companion publications and acts as notes for a training session between a human puppy and her handler. Modeled after a set of architectural plans, it articulates the structure of intimacies inherent in behavioral training. Operative conditioning—which relies on a system of reward and punishment—is visualized throughout a series of questions and diagrams that ask readers to consider how proximity, deprivation, yearning, generosity, and need guide and manipulate our relationships to others. The plans are installed on a plinth placed on the floor of the gallery with the command “KNEEL” installed in vinyl directly before it, prompting the viewer to consent and submit to following holloway’s directive in order receive the pleasurable reward of reading the text.

shawné michaelain holloway uses sound, video, and performance to shape the rhetoric of technology and sexuality into tools for exposing structures of power. She has spoken and exhibited at institutions internationally, including the New Museum, New York; Sorbus Galleria, Helsinki; The Kitchen, New York; the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. holloway teaches digital publishing theory and practice in the New Arts Journalism department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her books (- - -), i’d lie if I could even, and no separation were published in 2018 as part of the TOO OFTEN IN THE DARK series, an ode to bondage, refusal, and wild women. holloway is also a sex educator, teaching classes and writing about intersectional approaches to exploring our bodies and our kinks.