JAN 13 – FEB 11
A website intervention reflecting on collective care in pandemic time(s)

How to experience this commission

The artwork Phases and the In-Betweens debuted on this page on January 13, 2021, transforming five times throughout the month that followed according to the lunar cycle and culminating in the new moon on February 11. Framing a video that remained constant throughout the month, an animated background changed to highlight different elements and celestial states (the cosmos, fire, heaven, water, and earth) in alignment with the moon’s phase changes. To view an archival version of the work that combines its five iterations into one animated background, scroll down on this web page.

This artwork includes animation, text, and a video with sound.

To unmute the video’s audio track on desktop, adjust the volume meter in the video’s play bar. On your phone, turn the audio on by using the volume keys.

For a transcript of the audio track, a poem by danilo machado, and an audio image description of the animated frame, download the two files below.

PDF transcript of the audio track (opens in a new window)
Audio file with image description (opens in a new window)

Image Description

An animated GIF that cycles through five different background colors, text, and images. In the center of the background GIF is an embedded looped video shifting through different scenes signifying bureaucratic, medical, and environmental views of the Covid pandemic in New York City along with medical imagery from the Brothers Sick.

The animated gifs show, first: a cosmic background sprinkled with light stars fills the view of the webpage window. Each of the four corners of the window contains a smaller, square animated loop. On the top left corner is a purple-tinted timelapse of an empty twin-sized bed with crumpled sheets. To the left of the bed is another bed, barely visible on the edge of the frame, and to the right of the bed is a nightstand with a glowing lamp. The sheets are drawn in pencil and shift through different amorphous shapes, made and unmade. The Chinese character 地 (dì) fades in on top in bold and yellow, meaning earth or ground. A poem to the right in yellow serif font and reads from left to right, lines arranged like steps: sheets crumpled like paper / new moon / first phase. At the top right corner of the GIF is a new moon in indigo glowing on a yellow background. Below the moon is a poem that cascades down: otherwise / obscured / indirect / look / fire / work / pain / highest. Bottom right corner is an animated dark blue figure on a red background with thin drawn lines of lilac and yellow bursting out of its heart center like fireworks. The bottom left corner is a steadily pulsing circle gradient with red hues on lime background, signifying highest pain. Between the firework figure and the pulsing circle is a poem cascading: outward sparklers / burn the earth / many bright stars. Above the red pulsing gradient and below the bed is a poem that reads: bed / frame / sheets / like / billboard / like / felix / spirit.

Second: a red background and overlay of a mountain range on fire, smoke billowing into the night sky. The GIF fills the view of the webpage window. Each of the four corners of the window contains a smaller animated loop. On the top left corner is a top-down video of a candle, specifically the Yahrzeit candle lit in memory of the dead in Judaism. The Chinese character 火 (huǒ) fades in on top in bold and red, meaning fire. A poem to the right in yellow serif font reads: aflame aflame / wax waxing fire lit / half moon. At the top right corner of the GIF is a waxing first quarter moon in red on an indigo background. Below the moon is a poem that reads: red / split / split / lit / being / all / physical / halfs– the words themselves placed in a column split into halves. Bottom right corner is an indigo blue figure filling up slowly from the hands and feet until completely covered in the red crayon-like texture, then the texture recedes back out of the body in a loop. The bottom left corner is a slowly radiating circle gradient with yellow and green hues on a blue background, signifying lower pain. Between the figure and the radiating circle is a poem that reads: green surround / blue pulsing out / in fully being. Above the yellow radiating gradient and below the candle is a poem that reads: blew / out / bobcat / fire-yellow / center / flicker / blue / out.

Third: a muted overall blue-grey background and an overlay of white clouds moving in an upward right direction on loop. The GIF fills the view of the webpage window. Each of the four corners of the window contains a smaller animated loop. On the top left corner is a yellow, green, and blue scene of a head with a lowered mask revealing the nose and nostrils, the head tilting up gesturing to the sky during a covid test swab process. Each nostril is getting swabbed by a gloved hand of a nurse. The Chinese character 天 (tiān) fades in on top in bold blue, meaning heaven or sky. A poem to the right in blue serif font reads: gloved swab / full glitch / full frame / heaven clouded sky. At the top right corner of the GIF is a full moon glitching in high contrast yellow against a yellow-green background. Below the moon is a poem that reads: all / moon / and / cratered / futures / being / concentric / beings, with the words themselves placed in a column split into halves. Bottom right corner is a white figure emitting six looped glowing shapes in pink white and red outlines of the body that get bigger towards the edges of the frame. The bottom left corner is a slowly radiating circle gradient with a blue circular nucleus and green rings surrounding it against a red background, signifying lowest pain pulsing. Between the figure and the radiating circle is a poem that reads: lowest pain cool center / light red / outward radiant. Above the radiating gradient circle and below the GIF of the nose being swabbed is a poem that reads: virus / testing / (in / case) quick / and / painless / done.

Fourth: a blue background of waves shimmering and shifting downward and inward into one another. The GIF fills the view of the webpage window. Each of the four corners of the window contains a smaller animated loop of four smaller animated gifs. From top left moving clockwise, a purple blue background with a yellow gray sketch of pills and bottles, and a translucent IV dripping liquid one drop at a time overlaid on the drawing. The Chinese character 水 (shuǐ) blinks over the IV in bright yellow. A poem to the right in yellow serif font reads: dripping clear medication / water meditation / half-waning moon. In the top right corner is a blue waning half moon on a red square background. The darker blue navy shadow trembles on the line bisecting the moon. Beneath this reads a poem: blue-purple/ lunar / wane / body / split / red / pain. Below that poem in the bottom right corner is a yellow square with a shivering lavender figure outlining a smaller figure alternating between red and blue. To the left of this reads another poem: lavender limbs feeling / red light pulse / orange throb. And in the bottom left corner is an indigo square with a crimson red, magenta, scarlet, maroon gradient, radiating from the center. Above this gif reads a poem: drip / and / drip / down / and / glowing / out.

And lastly, fifth: a lime green background and overlay of veiny roots slowly growing in the earth. The GIF fills the view of the webpage window. Each of the four corners of the window contains a smaller animated loop. On the top left corner is a timelapse of an empty twin-sized bed with crumpled sheets. The sheets are drawn in pencil and shift through different amorphous shapes. The Chinese character 地 (dì) fades in on top in bold and yellow, meaning earth or ground. A poem to the right in indigo serif font reads: sheets crumpled like paper / new moon / first phase. At the top right corner of the GIF is a new moon in indigo glowing gold on a red background. Below the moon is a poem that reads: otherwise / obscured / indirect / look / fire / work / pain / highest. Bottom right corner is an animated pale blue figure with thin drawn lines of white and red bursting out of its heart center like a firework. The bottom left corner is a steadily pulsing circle gradient with red hues on yellow background, signifying high pain. Between the firework figure and the pulsing circle is a poem that reads: outward sparklers / burn the earth / ground roots grow. Above the red pulsing gradient and below the bed is a poem that reads: bed / frame / sheets / like / billboard / like / felix / spirit.

About this commission

Phases and the In-Betweens is a collaborative digital artwork by Brothers Sick (Ezra and Noah Benus), Yo-Yo Lin, and danilo machado that disrupts the usual vertical, linear flow of The Shed’s website. The combination of an animated frame, a video at its center, and accompanying texts that appear both in the animation and as accessible alt-text proposes new hierarchies, ways of reading, and reflections on the notions and networks of collective care during the COVID-19 pandemic from a disability-artistry perspective. Starting with the new moon on January 13, the work will transform throughout the month according to the phases of the lunar cycle as a way to reflect on (and criticize) the “phases of reopening” as set up by governmental agencies as part of the so-called “return to normal.”

The piece’s video is composed of photos and footage from the Benus’s personal archive documenting their medical files, facilities where ongoing medical treatments take place, and moments from their rare outings in Brooklyn and the Bronx during the pandemic. These images are layered with indexed maps and data correlated to the pandemic’s impact on the city. Poetic image descriptions written by machado and animations created by Lin—which draw inspiration from elemental and celestial charts for navigating time and cycles of pain, along with guidance from the Tao Te Ching—frame the video on the web page.

Critically engaging with New York State’s reopening plan of arbitrary, constructed phases set in contrast to cycles found in nature, the artists aim to showcase the heightened anxiety of experiencing the “outside” world in a predominantly medicalized way during the pandemic as the public world has shifted radically between shutdowns and Black Lives Matter protests. Through the frameworks of disabled/crip time, sick time, and pandemic time, the piece takes a look at the disablement further imposed on communities who identify as sick/ill/disabled during a pandemic and how we might better account collectively for the well-being of one another.

Creative Team

The Brothers Sick: Ezra on the left, Noah on the right. Two white Ashkenazi Jewish disabled brothers with dark brown hair sitting on a porch off of a red brick home on a summer night, dark sky in the background. Ezra is wearing a blue face mask, short sleeve white shirt with red, green, blue, yellow geometric shapes with blue pants, legs crossed and looking at Noah. Noah is wearing a red face mask, round metal glasses, a green short sleeve polo shirt, white pants with hands crossed in lap and legs spread, head looking straight towards the camera.
Photo: Shai Katz.
Brothers Sick
An open laptop with a webcam feed of Yo-Yo Lin in her bedroom holding her phone up to her face, obscuring her mouth. Yo-Yo is East Asian and has dark straight hair with blonde tips. On her laptop is a small altar consisting of two candles, a piece of apple and a white Chinese tea cup.
Photo: Yo-Yo Lin.
Yo-Yo Lin
A queer brown person wearing tan courderoy overalls, mask, and pink glasses poses with one leg crossed over the other. They stand on a gray stone path littered with leaves and surrounded by greenery and branches.
Photo: Avery Camp.
danilo machado
Brothers Sick
Ezra and Noah Benus are artists who founded Brothers Sick, a sibling artistic collaboration on disability justice, illness, and care. Ezra is an artist, educator, and curator, who addresses a range of themes in his art such as time, care, pain, and illness/health by tapping into his background and experience in Jewish studies, art history, and the embodiment of disability. He engages the self as a site where social, political, and spiritual forces collide through tapping into bodily knowledge and social constructions around values of normativity. He is currently a SHIFT Artist in Residence at EFA Project Space. Noah is a New York City-based photographer interested in exploring activism through social, educational, and political works. As a disabled artist, he ventures to reveal often overlooked moments through modes of portraiture, photojournalism, and studio works. His photographic works use alternative processes, and analog and digital formats to educate and advocate for access. Currently, he is completing his MA in visual arts education (K – 12) at CCNY.
Yo-Yo Lin
Yo-Yo Lin is a Taiwanese American, interdisciplinary media artist who explores the possibilities of self-knowledge in the context of emerging, embodied technologies. She often uses video, animation, live performance, and lush sound design to create what she calls meditative “memoryscapes.” Her current work reveals and re-values the complex realities of living with chronic illness. Through researching and developing methodologies in reclaiming chronic health trauma, she investigates the generative nature of the ill/disabled body-mind and facilitates sites for community-centered abundance. She was a 2019 “Access” Artist in Residence at Eyebeam and has shown her work at SXSW, New York Film Festival, and the Allied Media Conference. Lin is the co-founder of ROTATIONS, a collaborative movement practice working towards deepening and challenging our understanding of artistry, disability, and access. She finds a place and community in New York, Los Angeles, and Taipei.
danilo machado
Born in Medellín, Colombia, danilo machado is a poet, curator, and critic on occupied land interested in language’s potential for revealing tenderness, erasure, and relationships to power. A 2020 – 21 Poetry Project Emerge-Surface-Be Fellow, their writing has been featured in Hyperallergic, the Brooklyn Rail, ArtCritical, and TAYO Literary Magazine among others. machado is the author of the Post Post Post newsletter and has contributed writing to exhibitions at CUE Art Foundation, No Longer Empty, and Abrons Art Center. A producer of public programs at the Brooklyn Museum, machado is also the curator of the exhibitions Otherwise Obscured: Erasure in Body and Text (Franklin Street Works, 2019 – 20) and the upcoming support structures, featuring the 2019 – 20 cohort of Art Beyond Sight’s Art and Disability Residency. machado is the co-founder and co-curator of the reading series Maracuyá Peach and the chapbook/broadside fundraiser already felt: poems in revolt & bounty. They are working to show up with care for their communities.

Past Event

Penumbra: Full Moon Party Read more about “Penumbra: Full Moon Party” All details for “Penumbra: Full Moon Party”
JAN 28, 2021, AT 8 PM EST
A Zoom gathering for moon-gazers to share music, movement, and poetry
Up Close Read more about “Up Close” All details for “Up Close”
ONGOING DIGITAL SERIES
New online artworks connecting us in this time apart

Thank you to our partners

The Shed is connected by
Up Close is supported by
The creation of new work at The Shed is generously supported by the Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Commissioning Fund and the Shed Commissioners.