An Extension of Us(2020)
Roots Run Deep - Brew House Arts
An Extension of Us is an interactive performance piece that allows people to connect through a pair of braids embedded with sensors and powered by Arduino, turning the braids into a communication device. When one person brings their hand near the braid, a light turns on for both. When one squeezes the braid, the other feels a buzz. When both sing loudly enough, a song plays for both of them.
This piece was intended for my mom in Virginia, my sister in Massachusetts, and myself in Pennsylvania. It’s rooted in the time the three of us spend together doing hair at my parents’ braiding salon. In our family of five girls, learning to braid is a rite of passage. I’ve been braiding for as long as I can remember, and even though my youngest sisters have us to do their hair now, they are still encouraged to learn.
By embedding sensors and actuators within the braids and integrating them with Arduino, the piece turns a personally and culturally meaningful object into a tool for connection. Created during the pandemic, it responds to the need for closeness across distance, using a familiar practice to sustain intimacy, care, and presence through technology.
Poem
For a braid to hold, its strands must conform to a gradual taper, or else, without a rubber band or ribbon tightened to its end, it unravels.
In some cases, change must be abrupt. In others, we force it so, getting the pattern all wrong and having to start over.
And I know that there’s no way you would ever leave me stranded, even though I question whether this blood is sufficient reason to keep our lives intertwined. Even though I’m unsure of the difference between intertwined and bound. Even though I’m not sure if those differences even matter.
A braid, woven tightly enough, becomes rigid, any unevenness obvious.
Think about the time spent crossing these strands, millions of them by now, and think of the banality. Think of the time spent in each other’s presence, chattering to distract, our bond strengthening over days as our fingers weakened over hours, this rite of passage now the basis of our livelihoods.
Question: How many times, in our lives, will we undo? Start over?
Answer: Every time we notice the tangled mass of hair our lives have become. Hopefully.
I wonder how often you feel lonely when I’m around. I wonder if you ever look at me and think: You’ll never understand.
I am trying to hold the small things and remember that they make up the bulk of our time here and sit, ensconced in the loveliness of them and notice that they are there, innumerable, they’re fine strands intertwined, knotted, waiting to be brushed free.
I am trying not to relegate the good only to memories.
-thoughts & emotions realized by Ivana M-A, my younger sister