[8] The piece consisted of a "durational" (crudely translated as "extended time") performance of self-induced miscarriages,[12] and was intensely controversial, with criticism from mass media outlets and both anti-abortion and pro-choice political commentators.
Theorist, Jennifer Doyle, notes that the performance “exposed the investments of a range of institutional systems in [the female] body as both a creative and reproductive system,” and wrote of the media controversy, “the content of the performance has expanded to include nearly all reaction to it.”[8] Art historian, Carrie Lambert Beatty, writes that the project's “central point [is] that what we take as biological facts are constructed in language and ideology,” noting the different implications of calling Shvarts's bleeding a period, a miscarriage, or an abortion.
[1] Shvarts's later artworks made using documentation of Untitled [Senior Thesis] have since been exhibited at Artspace, New Haven[16] and written about in Texte zur Kunst,[17] Mousse,[9] and Artforum.
[9][23] Originally commissioned by Recess’s Critical Writing Fellowship,[24] versions of How Does It Feel To Be A Fiction have been presented at the Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá,[25] and Artspace, New Haven.
In addition to her artistic and scholarly work, Shvarts has written liner notes for the drone metal band Sunn O)))'s album Kannon[37] and appeared as a guest commentator on MTV.