Artist Qualeasha Wood Says Viral ‘BedRot’ Performance Copied Her Work
ARTnews reports that artist Qualeasha Wood accused an emerging performer using the alias Aphex Redditor of copying Wood’s earlier “bed rotting”–themed work after Aphex Redditor’s 24-hour Instagram Reels scrolling performance BedRot went viral. Wood previously staged a similar durational performance, Attention Economy, in March 2025 at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery in London and repeated it in September at the Victoria & Albert Museum, with a screen displaying her phone feed alongside her. Aphex Redditor’s BedRot took place at Eastern Bloc in Montreal between Friday and Saturday and similarly displayed the performer’s scrolling feed; a related post on X drew more than 66,000 likes. Aphex Redditor told ARTnews she was unaware of Wood’s work, said she had been developing the piece with the gallery since December 2024 to study algorithm development over time, and added that Wood deserved comparable media recognition.
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This story was covered in Next-Gen Money, Queer Legacy, Viral Theft