PULSE is a ten-day durational performance by Lara Salmon, unfolding daily from May 7 to 17th from
2-4pm at Brief Histories.
A tribute to the diamond of chronic pain feedback, PULSE addresses the sharp loop between trauma, sensation, perception, and biological memory. Through controlled currents, the artist seeks to interrupt and rewire the entrenched circuitry of her nervous system, disrupting pathways that have long fused body to suffering. Each day, visitors are invited to activate the work by engaging a pressure matrix mounted on the gallery wall. This touch sends an electrical signal into the artist’s body, momentarily unsettling her internal landscape. Across the room, a solar panel turns sunlight into a parallel intervention. Human touch and solar light—two gestures of care—work in tandem to spark brief, destabilizing chaos in the artist’s nervous system, opening the possibility of temporary relief of pain and new neural paths.
In the adjoining room plays It Feels Like, a short film created by Salmon with the assistance of Vanessa Dahbour and Alec Rosenheck. The film offers a visual corollary to the performance, mapping the evolution of chronic pain in the artist’s body since adolescence. Through fire, voltage, and sensory overload, the exhibition traces the porous boundary between body and mind, the intimate entanglement of trauma and pain.
In a time marked by rising authoritarianism, state violence, and ecological collapse, PULSE asserts the urgency of radical collective care. It is a call to tend to individual pain not in isolation, but as a shared societal responsibility—where healing becomes both intimate and political.
The interface for PULSE was developed in collaboration with Erika Patriz Earl and a team of hardware engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This work was made possible, in part, by the Franklin Furnace FUND 2024-25, supported by Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the members and friends of Franklin Furnace Archive.
Lara Salmon is a performance and visual artist whose practice is grounded in the lived experience of chronic pain and unseen disability. Through physically demanding actions performed by a body with limits, she invites audiences to reflect on civic empathy and radical care. Based in Los Angeles, Lara has spent significant time living and working across the SWANA region, shaping her work’s nuanced perspective on global duty. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East, including presentations at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, The Wende Museum of the Cold War (Los Angeles), SomoS Arts, and the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum (Berlin). She has participated in residencies in Beirut, Berlin, and Marrakech. Lara holds a BA from UC Berkeley and an MFA from Claremont Graduate University. She received the Grand Prix at the 2021 Larnaca Biennale in Cyprus for her performance saline dissonance, and is a 2024 Franklin Furnace FUND recipient. Her work has been featured in Artforum, Hyperallergic, Space on Space, and other outlets. She has been shortlisted for a Fulbright and Creative Capital.