Monday, March 8, 2021

Michelle M. Murphy

Artist :: Scholar

“Earthbound Astronaut - a performative journey through Space exploration and its social history by artist and scholar Michelle M. Murphy”

At tourist sites in the United States, I perform for camera and for an incidental public without permission or permits. My silent actions in costumes and with props are humorous and repetitive though sometimes risky. These domestic earthbound space explorations question the archetype and purpose of explorer. On location I become an awkward “stunt man” or astronaut in a green chroma key suit or in a fake space suit surrounded by and wearing multiple still and video cameras. I am documented and heckled by tourists and some performances end pre- maturely by security, staff, or police. As my corporeal actions drift from expected behavior at public and private space the current ownership and histories are contested. The work itself is both challenging and challenged. Even when I am told “no”, I find meaning in the discovery of the rules and acceptable behavior.

Michelle Murphy is an artist, scholar, sapiosexual, gender non-conforming, radical, intersectional and transnational feminist, goth mama, 4th generation post-potato-famine pilgrim, raised in the Midwest region of Turtle Island. Murphy earned a MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago as a New Artist’s Society Fellow (2017) and BFA from Cleveland Institute of Art. From 2004-2015 Murphy was a NASA Photographer.