December 7 1989: David first performs ITSOFOMO (In the Shadow of Forward Motion), with musician Ben Neill at The Kitchen.
ITSOFOMO (In the Shadow of Forward Motion) was David’s most ambitious multimedia performance piece. He created film clips, collected sounds, and took photographs for the piece throughout 1989, working with Neill to choreograph the show. The performance immersed one in an acceleration of video, slide projection, and live dance, music and reading. David told his biographer, Cynthia Carr: “Consider that you’re in a car speeding along on an expressway. Everything that you see out of the corner of your eye which doesn’t register [while you’re] in the pursuit of speed…It’s all the things quietly occurring, within absence of sight.” Neill’s live soundtrack sampled yelling, bells, trombones, and other electronic and percussive sounds.
David Wojnarowicz and Ben Neill, ITSOFOMO, 1989. Courtesy Ben Neill.