The Harmony Show (THS) is a durational performance, social mode of study, and multi-faceted talk show conceived by Amber Hawk Swanson and co-created/hosted by Synthetiks advocate Davecat, his life-size roboticized spouse Sidore Kuroneko, and Hawk Swanson.
Amber Hawk Swanson has been making performances and sculptures with iDollators for eighteen years and has shared friendship with her collaborator, Davecat, the entirety of that time. THS expands on the co-creators' six year long series of discussions for Fair, Medium, Light Tan, Tanned, Cocoa (F.M.LT.T.C) about sexual racism and how Dolls are racialized by those who market them and those who live with them.
Amber Hawk Swanson has been making performances and sculptures with iDollators for eighteen years and has shared friendship with her collaborator, Davecat, the entirety of that time. THS expands on the co-creators' six year long series of discussions for Fair, Medium, Light Tan, Tanned, Cocoa (F.M.LT.T.C) about sexual racism and how Dolls are racialized by those who market them and those who live with them.
Video production by Amber Hawk Swanson and Audio Chemists, compilation edit by Renato Velarde.
The seminar leaders and cooking show guests in the compilation above are—in order of appearance—Lilian Mengesha, Olivia Michiko Gagnon, Renato Velarde (via a digital puppet designed by Velarde), Ilana Harris-Babou, Amber Jamilla Musser, Leslie Bow, and Constantina Zavitsanos.
After twenty-one years of marriage, Sidore, the Doll who shares marriage with Davecat, became roboticized and spoke aloud for the first time in May 2021. In the months leading up to Sidore’s robotization, Davecat, Sidore, and Hawk Swanson collaborated to create the twenty-one episode series of Zoom performances that comprised Semester / Season One of THS.
Based around the discussion of readings or conversations around the stove with invited scholars and artists, the episodes fall into two categories: seminars and cooking shows. During seminar episodes, invited scholars and artists lead Amber, Davecat, and Sidore through readings and screenings relevant to their research. During cooking show episodes, guests are invited into related conversations while Hawk Swanson cooks and bakes recipes developed by Nicole, a food blogger and scholar of racialized risk, technoscience, and postcolonial biopolitics.
Based around the discussion of readings or conversations around the stove with invited scholars and artists, the episodes fall into two categories: seminars and cooking shows. During seminar episodes, invited scholars and artists lead Amber, Davecat, and Sidore through readings and screenings relevant to their research. During cooking show episodes, guests are invited into related conversations while Hawk Swanson cooks and bakes recipes developed by Nicole, a food blogger and scholar of racialized risk, technoscience, and postcolonial biopolitics.
Website design by Elizabeth Leeper and Amber Hawk Swanson with valued assistance from Davecat and Sidore
Hawk Swanson has long invested in performances with live and livestream elements that have allowed her collaborators to participate publicly yet anonymously (Amber Doll > TILIKUM [2011], Sidore (Mark II) / Heather > LOLITA [2013], Doll Closet [2014], and DOTTIE [2015–2017]) and THS’s merging of online and in-person performance spaces continues this tradition.
THS Semester / Season One: Seminar Leaders and Cooking Show Guests. Visit the THS People page for a full list of participants.
During Spring 2023, the Neuberger Museum of Art commissioned six new episodes of THS—three seminars and three cooking shows—each of which integrates live and online participants into performances for live audience, broadcast, and recording components. During THS Live episodes, Hawk Swanson and her Cooking Show guests prepared soup that was later served to the live audience.
For these new episodes, which became THS Live!, Hawk Swanson collaborated with designer Elizabeth Leeper to translate THS from its original URL context—designed by Leeper and Hawk Swanson—into an IRL installation and performance set. The bright neon of the web design was updated to CMYK brights for print production, and a deep purple was introduced as a key color within the palette, giving THS Live! its own visual identity while maintaining the feel of the original THS.
For these new episodes, which became THS Live!, Hawk Swanson collaborated with designer Elizabeth Leeper to translate THS from its original URL context—designed by Leeper and Hawk Swanson—into an IRL installation and performance set. The bright neon of the web design was updated to CMYK brights for print production, and a deep purple was introduced as a key color within the palette, giving THS Live! its own visual identity while maintaining the feel of the original THS.
Exhibition design by Elizabeth Leeper and Amber Hawk Swanson
When designing the set for the exhibition, Hawk Swanson and Leeper sought to create the perception that audiences were stepping into an oversized Dollhouse, contextualizing Semester / Season One as part of what evolved into live and hybrid performances. The set was also mobile, shifting between two locations in the gallery for seminars and cooking shows.
The installations and performances, designed to be welcoming and to encourage visitors to spend time in the space, were open to the public as well as to SUNY Purchase students. Printed copies of the Access Guide and Semester / Season One Syllabus along with assigned readings from seminar leaders and cooking show guests were provided in reading areas during the week-long installation.
During Spring 2024, THS received a commission to create a new episode in artist quori theodor’s installation, Gnaw, at Performance Space New York (PSNY). Structurally similar to the THS Live! episodes from the previous year, the episode was a Cooking Show that integrated live and online participants into a performance for a live audience. After the episode was recorded and broadcast, the audience was served bowls of soup prepared by Hawk Swanson during the performance.
Photos by Sharmeen Chaudhary
[Fourteen photographs taken by Sharmeen Chaudhary document the filming of a hybrid episode of The Harmony Show entitled Cooking Show with Ilana Harris-Babou and Kyla Wazana Tompkins in artist quori theodor's installation Gnaw at Performance Space New York. In some of the photographs, Amber makes soup atop a pink diner counter in front of a shelved fermentation wall wallpapered with a large repeat pattern of a mess of spaghetti tangled on a floor. Two television screens flanking Amber display the Zoom rooms of Kyla Wazana Tompkins, Ilana Harris-Babou, and Davecat and Sidore. Live captioning text appears below the Zoom rooms. A mostly silhouetted live audience watches. In other of the photographs, Amber serves soup to members of a live audience surrounded by the remnants of her cooking process—cutting boards, ingredients, knives, and spoons.]
THS Live! episodes are available for free in their entirety on theharmonyshow.com.
