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^{miranda j friedman}

your personality’s ok, single-channel video with sound, 7:56, 1995–1998, 2021.

your personality’s ok is a document which attempts to trace the origins of a family’s understanding of family.

friedman created this short video work by pulling from their 1990s VHS archives (family videos and footage by friedman) and writing and producing a track. The following narrative formed from various forms of time capsuled play:

Under the leadership of one patriarchal figure, each family member relies on one another to define kinship. After various attempts to fulfill nuclear family ideals, including role play, performative femininity and masculinity, pharmaceutical abuse, toxic whiteness and sing-a-longs, the child and father get into a car accident. The child’s view of the father’s authority lifts like a spell and the family settles on television as its guiding principle. The video flips through the TV stations of this pursuit. The testimonial booth (reality TV’s vernacular for inner thought) channels the child’s future self—a celebrity vocalist. Sing along at the end to wish away or ruminate about your own familial missteps.