Twitching, trembling, twinning, freckling is an immersive triple-channel video projection that interrogates the legacy of the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) at Cold Spring Harbor, New York. The piece contrasts footage from a dairy and beef livestock show at Bangor State Fair, ME, with text-based excerpts from the Trait Book used by eugenic fieldworkers to classify individuals as “desirable” or “undesirable.” This archival language, rife with diagnostic terms, offers a chilling reflection of eugenic thought—categorizing human beings in the same way livestock were graded for breeding.

The installation implicitly references the Fitter Family contests held at state fairs across the United States in the 1920s. Sponsored by the American Eugenics Society, these contests promoted a eugenics-driven agenda by encouraging individuals from “good stock” to have larger families, while simultaneously collecting family pedigree data for eugenic research. Through this connection, the piece critiques the normalization of eugenics within public health and social discourse during this period.