PULSE was a durational performance/exhibition by Lara Salmon, taking place at Brief Histories daily May 7-17, 2025, 2-4 pm.

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.

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.

Video shot and edited by Vanessa Dahbour.

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