My relationship to all of my students is fairly constant. I expect the best of them.

What made you hire her to work on your crew?

I thought she was talented. I wanted to give her a chance.

Did Brenae do her best, in your mind?

I don’t think Brenae was ready for the intensity of graduate school. Her second semester was a total disaster. She barely attended any classes. She was showing up to places clearly under the influence—

How so?

Slurring and stumbling.

What “places” are you referring to?

Open studios, presentations. LAAC social gatherings mostly.

Was she the only student to show up to social events inebriated?

Of course not. I brought it up because you asked what changed. She changed.

Tell me about your probationary meeting on March 5, 2003.

I meet with all my students at the end of their first year to have a preliminary talk about their graduation show. In Brenae’s case, we met early because I was worried about her career at LAAC. She hadn’t produced anything since the fall, and she was likely to flunk her classes. Her future funding had been suspended because her performance was so poor. Frankly, I thought she ought to put school on hiatus and come back and finish the degree when she felt well again. I told her so. I promised her a place.

She refused and insisted that she had in fact produced some work and she wanted to show it to me.

What work?

There were two videos. One was quite long, but I watched the whole thing. It was footage she’d taken over the past year at openings and parties, of people walking away to their cars. That’s all it was. The parties breaking up.

I didn’t think much of it. It had none of Brenae’s usual verve. She wasn’t starring in it. That was a big problem. The other problem is that students think their social lives are more interesting than they are.

What was in the second video?

The other video showed Brenae engaged in a sexual act with an unidentified male. She’d put together a voice-over that implied that he was forcing her. That shocked me. Then she told me that as part of her graduation project, she wanted to project it on a wall in our main building. She thought this was a daring idea, a confrontation of sexual politics at LAAC, and she didn’t see any of its complications for her, for the school, for whoever her sexual partner was. I told her that was impossible.

Do you know who it was?

No. The man’s head was blurred out.

No guesses? You must have guessed.

None.

And she didn’t tell you?

No.

Why didn’t you ask?