Video Performances
Siren Song
Video performance with sound (based on the S.C.U.M. Manifesto, by Valerie Solanas)
Using samples of Solanas’ text and lip-syncing them to the camera, I layered the various performances to create an image intended to recall the Hydra, a monstrous female swamp-beast from Greek myth, with many heads. The Hydra’s destructive anger has been widely depicted as wholly feminine and irrational and, it seemed to me, that it matched the tone of the text. The Sirens lured sailors to their deaths with their beautiful songs. I wanted to introduce an element of beauty to seduce viewers, to sweeten the fury.
Duration 2m 30s
Thrash
Performance made for video, with sound.
Thrash is a short performance work made for the camera. Aesthetically its concern is with the boundary of the frame and the breakdown of the image surface. In substance it is concerned with the limitations of both the body and ideas about femininity.
A woman shakes herself continually as the song Ave Maria plays. Her movements are frantic and contrast with the smooth and mellifluous tones of the music. The sound of her laboured breathing can be heard over the music as she seems to try to shake herself out of herself. Disturbed and disturbing, this performance work attempts to unsettle and complicate an idealised image of femininity through the simple use of technology.
Duration 5 minutes (looped for presentation)
Skin & Fever
2 x performances made for video, with sound. To accompany each other, played on monitors.
The works are played on 2 identical (large) monitors, set sideways on plinths, placed either side of a doorway/staircase. They are set at approximately head height and each monitor has headphones attached.
Each monitor plays a video performance of a single female figure. In both she is miming to a popular song – ‘Fever’ by Peggy Lee and ‘I’ve Got you Under My Skin’ by Frank Sinatra. In the first (Fever) she is hot, perspiring and her eyes water. She lip-syncs deadpan to the camera and gradually her nose begins to bleed, blood seeping into her mouth by the end of the song. On the second (Skin) she scratches at herself constantly throughout the song. She is edgy and anxious. These works were created for a show entitled ‘Contagious’ and make a play with the words of the songs and the title of the show, switching constantly between literal and metaphoric positions.
Duration 3 minutes each (looped for presentation)
For FA+ at Malmo Museum, Sweden
Not One
Video performance for a small screen
A woman is joined to herself at the waist. Double headed and lacking legs, she has mutated into a mermaid like creature. She appears to be fighting herself or struggling somehow. At times, she disappears into the white background, only to return, as if fighting for air. The soundtrack is a constant series of gasps and inhalations. She never exhales.
Duration 6 minutes. Looped.
Inspired by the writings of Luce Irigaray
Happy Slap
Performance made on a mobile phone, for viewing on small screens/handheld devices
The work was devised in part as a response to the ‘Happy Slapping’ craze that was sweeping the UK in the mid 2000’s. ‘Happy Slapping’ is a strange phenomenon that has emerged as a result of the flood of cheap mobile phones with cameras. Part Jackass, part slapstick, the action is usually relatively harmless but there is a darker side to this craze. Happy Slapping has been a feature in both rape and murder cases and as such it is now considered by some as encouraging violent tendencies.
‘Happy Slap’ is a little dark, private performance in which I ‘slap my self silly’. The music playing over the top of the work is ‘Is This Love’ from the cartoon version of Cinderella to suggest perhaps that this is an enactment of perverse self-love/violence.
Duration 2.5 minutes
Zizek Twitch
Video performance for a small screen
A woman sits on a chair. She begins to scratch, twitch and fidget. The fidgeting, twitching and scratching gets faster, her movements more frantic. All the time she looks at the viewer. A quiet, clicking clacking soundtrack plays.
Duration 4 minutes. Looped.
Inspired by a live talk by Slavov Zizek lecture at the Pompidou Centre (2006/7).