The artist, myself, is the performer. The performer wears a hand-stitched hessian straight-jacket, circular breathing into used car oil, against a stark background with cold lighting. The performer consistently blows their breath, representing human life force, into used car oil. Thus, juxtaposing the tension between natural life force and mechanization. The dark sticky substance, which is not decomposable into the earth, is used to ensure machines work reliably. It requires regular maintenance. The white glove is symbolic of a western patriarchal system sanitizing humanity to be mechanized. The source of this breath is out of touch with that which it breathes into. This performance is a response to a wound. Returning to university to study I was confronted with this old wound. Where a certain set of ideologies determines one’s intelligence and what it is to be successful. I developed good skills and made excellent friends, but, my creative life force energy was restricted and constrained. I stitched my own graduation gown into a strait jacket as an expression of my sensation, where certain ideologies are prioritized at the expense of individual authentic expression and creativity. This performance wishes to provoke reflection on societal structures, personal constraints and the tension between creativity and conformity. It invites viewers to consider their own consistent maintenance required to resist and navigate these systems that impact their own lived experience and creative expression.