SLICES: BIANNUAL REPORT ON STATUS OF RELATIONSHIP WITH SIGNIFICANT OTHER
The faint reek of Pine Sol was in evidence as we entered the N.A.M.E. space. Later in the performance, in a video, Scott cleans a kitchen table with Pine Sol and a sponge while he and his mate, artist David Eckard, engage in a sort of shorthand intimate yet quotidian discussion. As I watched the video, I didn’t look at the two of them talking; instead, my eyes were fixed on the bottle of cleaning fluid in one hand and the sponge in the other, which somehow had become a metaphor for Scott’s approach to living and loving. What is it like to be the person who must of inner necessity clean up? Scott has positioned himself as a “cleaner upper”: a measurer, a judge, a theoretician, a tough-minded spiritualist, a sociologist, a chronicler and navigator of the hazy, murky waters of relationships. In so doing he lets us in on the nature of this dubious, self-appointed job, as well as the results of his approach.
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So what terrain did these graphs map? They showed that Eckard seems to be the one who lets the relationship hum along, while Scott is the emotional provocateur. Yet Scott’s highs and lows averaged out to match his partner’s even-keeled approach. The charts also showed that the relationship is steadily moving upward, to “better than ever.” This information, despite Scott’s tongue-in-cheek approach, also seemed to reassure him.
