The SENSES Are Present in Boycott’s Endurance Art Series

We keep gathering to ingest stories of struggle and triumph, to observe human complexity, to see the plight of others and be seen in return, and we have gathered like this since before Homer's time. We relish the opportunity to recognize ourselves in a character’s goodness, yet cower at the familiarity of uglier human traits, imperfection, fury—impulsively turning away lest we risk being witnessed in our rage.

Is rage bad?

Last fall, I assisted a brilliant creative and friend on their endurance art installation, an interactive “rage room” facsimile entitled NOISE. Performed in Lander, Wyoming by Oakley Boycott and presented by Boycott… the Production, LLC., NOISE is part of the performance art series SENSES, all inspired by Marina Abramović’s The Artist is Present.

First came SILENCE in 2019. Over the course of three days in New York City, Boycott sat in stillness and silence for twelve-hour shifts. They perched across from an open chair, sometimes in isolation, sometimes in communion with the city’s inhabitants. The empty seat facing Boycott remained available to passersby for “as little or as long as needed or desired.” Through this inaugural installation, Boycott discovered the virtuosity and alchemy that comes from witnessing others in their rawest human form. By offering a space for themself and others to be held in mutual visibility, Boycott unleashed a powerfully therapeutic artform.

However, they lamented the sterility of the piece’s urban indoor setting. While many seek out the therapeutic benefits of art museums, galleries, and theatres in urban settings, in Boycott’s hometown, rural Wyomingites turn to nature for its mental health buttresses, losing themselves in the wilderness or howling their struggles into Wyoming’s incessant wind. Could Boycott’s work hold greater impact if offered back home, presented in an unlikely outdoor space where one could organically stumble upon the experience? They thought so. "It would just be white noise doing this work in New York or LA or Chicago,” Boycott told me. “It’s unique doing it [in Wyoming].”

Boycott returned to the majestic Wind River Mountains of the Equality State to provide a form of Western art quite unexpected for the remote, isolated county. They remounted SILENCE in the outdoor setting of Sinks Canyon State Park in 2020. Then, the piece traveled to other Wyoming locations—indoor and out—most recently the lobby of the Lyric theatre in Casper, Wyoming for the entire duration of the 2025 Wyoming Fringe Festival. Each hour that Boycott spends in the chair contributes to their larger goal of amassing 737 hours of human-to-human connection, a number that, in numerology, signifies fruitful creative exploration and encourages deeper cultivation of one’s unique talents to be shared with the world.

As Boycott travels the state, sitting with friends and strangers alike, they silently defy the notion of Western art consisting only of bronze bison statues and wide open plein air landscapes, the stereotypical “cowboy art” that is so often associated with Wyoming. For Boycott, SENSES is Western art because it is in and of the American West, composed of a Wyoming artist and the Wyoming communities that engage in the work. The discomfort from sitting motionless for hours on end is in service of strengthening community fibers, bridging Wyomingites across divisions in a way that allows them to be truly seen.

With Wyoming's small populations, neighbors must interact in person, regardless of political or personal divides. Wyomingites are always viewed by one another.

For Boycott, it always comes back to other people. To witnessing and holding community.

But for some, such raw visibility proves frighteningly vulnerable. As a society, we have grown accustomed to interaction through screens, making Boycott’s intentional witnessing feel exposed. Rather than experience discomfort, many prefer to retreat into their devices. Isolation flourishes in a populace that is increasingly turning its gaze inward, focusing on social media impressions and self-promotion. Furthermore, society polarizes when allowed to operate within fractionated political and ideological bubbles.

And yet, with Wyoming's small populations, neighbors must interact in person, regardless of political or personal divides. Wyomingites are always viewed by one another. These circumstances prompt another kind of isolation, that of donning the facade of perceived expectations. In doing so, community engagement can become its own form of inauthentic performance, a phenomenon that Boycott grapples with.

As Boycott readied themself for the second iteration of SENSES, a piece focused on community mental health entitled ECHO, I met them for the first time. A mutual friend of ours, Noelia Antweiler, was preparing for the Colorado premiere of Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning, and I insisted on a road trip to Fremont County, Wyoming, the inspiration for Arbery’s “red-state unicorn.” Boycott graciously opened their home to us. The three of us, all millennial artists from the Rocky Mountain region, spent the week in preparation for our respective upcoming gigs: Boycott with ECHO, Noelia with Heroes…, and myself with a production of An Iliad by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare, set to perform in Lander the following winter. As Noelia explored the divisive silos of American politics and I laid the foundation for Homer’s rageful epic, Boycott’s endurance art reflected a new perspective on the impact and efficacy of performance in one’s community.

The three of us sat on an outdoor patio discussing the meaning of community while a local musician serenaded the gathered crowd, the Wind River mountains looming on the horizon. We first defined the terms. Rather than a group of individuals with similar identities, professions, or ideologies, “community” often refers to those occupying the geographic area, where “community building” means fostering a sense of belonging within the local populace of our small Wyoming towns. With varying levels of optimism, we ruminated on the difference between performative community engagement versus active community building, the benefits of both, and their respective drawbacks.

Our challenge as artists and theatremakers was to ensure that this artistic community building was reaching the individuals who would benefit most from the interaction.

True fostering of community, we agreed, occurs through transformational acts rather than transactional exchanges, starting one-on-one, then branching out from there. Our challenge as artists and theatremakers was to ensure that this artistic community building was reaching the individuals who would benefit most from the interaction.

At the time of the ECHO installation in 2022, the Center for Disease Control ranked Wyoming as having the third worst suicide statistics in the nation, following Montana and Alaska. Governor Mark Gordon has called for an elevated response to this crisis, including conversations around mental health, greater community care, and even endeavors like Boycott’s. While the exact cause of such a high ranking is unknown, many point to a lethal combination of firearms ownership, inadequate access to mental health services, and loneliness and isolation.

The impulse to stay silent, to keep one’s inner darkness concealed out of fear of being exposed or stigmatized, is a prominent problem that ECHO tackled. This is particularly poignant for Wyoming audiences who are steeped in cowboy culture, being told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps lest they be perceived as weak. It isn’t a stretch to see how this language gets metabolized as the wild west version of “man up,” discouraging a person who is struggling from seeking help or outwardly expressing their strife. And that is exactly why this kind of art is necessary.

ECHO obliquely provided methods for vulnerable engagement with varying degrees of anonymity. Situated along the Popo Agie River in Shoshone National Forest, Boycott sat in an open air, transparent chamber facing a two-way mirror that reflected the artist back to themself. An adjoining chamber sat on the abutting side of the two-way mirror, allowing participants to sit across from Boycott in anonymity. Interaction with Boycott in full visibility occurred by standing behind the artist, seeking eye contact through the mirror.

As recreationalists parked at nearby trailhead lots, they encountered signs affixed to mirrors guiding them down a river path towards the ECHO installation. When passersby stumbled upon the unexpected structure, a production assistant prompted them to participate, answered questions, collected photographic and video documentation, and shared a laminated book of frequently asked questions and mental health resources. Equipped with sharpies, attendees were invited to write on the exterior walls of the chamber in which Boycott was enclosed—ideally providing a physical location to deposit the often muted reflections on individual and collective mental health.

Initially, Boycott observed the tendency of participants to write surface level comments, enacting the kind of toxic positivity that social media promotes. Daring to dispatch a deeper level of authenticity would mean stripping away the armor of self-censorship and social conditioning. Breaking the cycle of pleasant performativity, Boycott brought a sharpie into the chamber for the second and third day, writing their looming thoughts and fears on the interior walls as a model for vulnerable expression of the negative, scary, and mundane.

On return trips to Fremont County, Boycott and I delved into their tactics surrounding liberated community engagement. Through these discussions, my role with Boycott... the Production, LLC. evolved from unofficial sounding board to contracted facilitator and production consultant. For SENSES’s next installation, NOISE, we hoped to further subvert the idea of echo chambers, breaking through the disparate factions of society and creating an artistic container for the Lander community to be beautifully, grotesquely human. “I think if we… had space enough for that, [even] if just for a moment,” they told me, “we would be better for it. If we had some place to put it all, maybe we wouldn’t put it on each other.”

On the three days surrounding the 2024 general election, we repurposed the mirrored chambers from ECHO to create a room-within-a-room. Boycott once again sat in stillness, encased by their own reflection, while microphones captured a soundscape of the experience. Two chambers were erected in the center of the space, one masked in black and one mirrored and lit from within in which Boycott was enclosed. Sharpies were available for written commentary on the structure’s walls. The darkened chamber became a holding space for community members to freely vocalize their angers, joys, fears, or heart, serving as a part confessional, part “rage room.” For added anonymity, participants could play “white noise” on a provided tape deck that masked their speech with a prerecorded track of their artist statement or significant voice memos captured on Boycott’s phone.

The installation took place in an annexed communal meeting area of the Lander Library, a large, square room replete with a compact stage, grand piano, fireplace, and kitchenette. A resplendent chandelier dangles at the center point of the ceiling, which dimly lit the NOISE chambers situated directly below it. One must travel to a bifurcated section of the building to reach the quieted library quarters lined with books, but the environment still held a reverent air. Attendees entered in a hush, almost as if entering the stony, stained-glassed walls of a cathedral, prompting me to reflect on the ways in which I view the theatre as my chosen house of worship, just as others turn to churches or the natural world.

Over the course of the installation’s three days, a question recurred: Where, when, and how are we, as Americans, allowed to make noise?

Many people speak of the heightened spirituality they feel in the presence of the Wind River Mountains. I have experienced it myself, as have the conservative collegiates at Wyoming Catholic College, the outdoor enthusiasts who pilgrimage to the area, students at the National Outdoor Leadership School, and the Native tribes of the Northern Arapahoe and Eastern Shoshone who have been on this land far longer than the descendants of America’s White settlers. Boycott ensured direct invitations to all of these distinct pockets of the Lander community and more, fulfilling the Boycott… the Production mission to cultivate and nurture creative community connections and experiences through the arts and to connect juxtaposing communities through artistic expression. A targeted outreach campaign ensured that every candidate listed on the Fremont County ballot received a personal invitation to NOISE, regardless of political affiliation, along with an option to sponsor the installation. For the many candidates who ran on platforms that championed freedom of expression, this became an opportunity for them to literally put the money where their mouth is.

Boycott, who does not believe that true freedom of speech has ever existed in this country, provided a unique space to explore the intersection of liberty and expression. Over the course of the installation’s three days, a question recurred: Where, when, and how are we, as Americans, allowed to make noise? While Boycott prompted participants to scream alongside a pre-recorded bellow that occurred at the end of their artist statement, even talking at a regular decibel level proved difficult for many. Time and again, someone would peek into the space, speaking in whispers, avoiding transgression, seeking my permission to make a sound.

Attendees appeared concerned with participating in the “right” way. I was struck by how many individuals came with prepared remarks. Nothing in the piece’s marketing prompted attendees to do so, yet participant after participant entered the darkened chamber to recite preconceived ideas. Other attendees brought instruments, performing rehearsed songs in the posterior reflection of Boycott’s self-orchestrated confinement. Some lay on their backs, reciting repeated phrases like, “The only person that needs to see me is me.”

That last one confounded me, but who was I to judge? In the artist’s own vision, this was meant to be a “cathartic space for all members of the community to be witnessed and documented in [the] pure freedom of emotional expression.” If that mantra is what the participant felt called to express, then having the time, opportunity, and ability to do so is a wondrous thing. I was not there to censor. I was there to hold space, to provide support as a certified Mental Health First Aid practitioner, and to welcome strangers into this realm.

As a theatre producer, director, and actor, I knew how to cultivate the desired mood of the space, to address any possible technical hiccups, and to greet patrons with just the right amount of instruction for them to choose their own NOISE adventure. Perhaps most importantly, since I lived in another town, I was a relative stranger to the attendees, a measure that eliminated self-consciousness and liberated a degree of participant engagement.

All-encompassing liberty lay at the heart of the experience. Consent was its currency. People could choose whether they wanted to attend, to speak or sing or write, to make themselves visible to Boycott, to play the white noise tapes. When each tape clicked off after ninety minutes, I would pop into the darkened chamber, flip the tape, and press play, once more filling the room with a range of reflections on freedom and fear and community visibility.

Not everyone chose to participate. Some arrived in a state of defensive curiosity, only to poke their head into the room and promptly turn away without signing the production’s release form containing a “Participant Protection Clause.” The waiver outlined the recorded nature of the installation and stipulated how the audio files could and could not be utilized. It served as written consent, but some of the town’s more libertarian community members held boundaries around offering up any personal information whatsoever.

Potentially included in this demographic was a group of ten sharply dressed young men who sought a debate on the nature of rage. I learned that they were students from Wyoming Catholic College, the inspiration for Will Arbery’s characters in Heroes of the Fourth Turning. As they lingered in the doorway, I spoke with them sans judgement about what it means to be American, what freedom means to them, and the purpose of art, literature, and expression. We spoke of Heroes… and The Iliad—after all, as I pointed out to them, the very first word in Homer’s epic poem, this classic text that they study in their Great Books education, is “rage.” And, as we curated a brave space together, they began to see the profoundly moving quality at the forefront of each of Boycott’s performances: the power that exists in exposure and connection to raw humanity.

And now, I ask again the question which I posed to these young gentlemen:

Is rage bad?

And I will echo a question from Heroes of the Fourth Turning:

Is it all just noise?

And I will leave you with the crucial question at the heart of An Iliad—and SILENCE and ECHO and NOISE—and, really, the very essence of theatre:

Do you see?