The Narcissistic Erotic

Producing Untitled (Panties no.1)

2011-08-13T23:11:00.013Z

This video records the process of making the art piece Untitled (Panties no. 1). Made in front of a live audience the piece consists of polyester Walmart panties, $3.99, worn during a performance at C4 Gallery LA 4/8/2011 for a duration of 1 min 23 sec. The artwork can be bought for $4,503.99.

Forthcoming Performance 4th of August @6pm C4 Gallery LA

2011-07-28T19:34:00.010Z

‘Invite or Reject’ opens in C4 Gallery Los Angeles as part of Imagine Ireland; an initiative by Culture Ireland.

MART’s ‘Invite or Reject’ is an ambitious new Irish Visual Arts Exhibition curated by MART’s Ciara Scanlan and Matthew Nevin. The show consists of 15 selected Irish artists to create new work spread over a three-city exhibition.

This the third and final leg of a 3 part exhibition opens in C4 Gallery on August 4th at 6pm. The first show opened in Chicago in June and carried on to New York in Flux Factory in July. This exhibition shall showcase some of Ireland’s leading and emerging visual artists and highlight the strength of Artists in the international contemporary art scene. The work is challenging yet irresistibly welcoming for American audiences to interact and communicate with.

Artists: Adrian Duncan Benjamin Gaulon Adam Gibney Tony Kenny Katherine Nolan Ciara Scanlan Matthew Nevin.

Opening @6pm on August 4th at 5647 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles CA 90028 Map.

Exhibition runs from August 4th – August 24th

Flux Factory, New York, 14th July 2011

2011-07-28T19:26:00.004Z

This new work, performed at FLUX factory, New York July 2011, extends my exploration of how the gallery space frames the erotic female body in performance, using live feed and play with the space to structure the gaze.

The work aims to explore the processes that produce the erotic female body as spectacle, flipping the focus from the performing body to include the camera, gallery space and spectator. An interchange between the ‘live’ and the represented is theatrically stage to produce slippage between bodies that may act and be acted upon , and those that exist as spectacular image that can be exchanged in the economy of the visual. Themes of voyeurism, exhibitionism and narcissistic fascination twist and cross, as viewers become embroiled in their own act of consumption.

With thanks, as ever to MART

New Performance in FLUX , New York, 14th July

2011-07-12T17:47:00.009Z

I will be doing a new performance this Thursday 14th July in FLUX factory New York @ 9.30.pm. This work extends my previous exploration of how the gallery space frame the female body in performance, using live feed and play with the gallery walls to structure the gaze.

The work aims to explore the processes that produce the (erotic) female body as spectacle, flipping the focus from the performing body to include the camera, gallery space and spectator. Theatrically staged interchange between live feed and live performance, producing slippage between a 'live' tangible body moving in the same space as the spectators, an acting body that may act and be acted upon, and a body that exists only as image, an image that can be edited, cut up, fetished and exchanged in the economy of the visual.

Along with a video piece from performances in Berlin in July 2010, the work is part of MART's Invite or Reject supported by Imagine Ireland, an initiative by Culture Ireland.

Performances on Flux Thursday, July 14th 8pm +
Exhibition runs July 9th – 30th, Thurs – Sun, 12 – 6pm
FLUX factory, 39-31 29th Street, New York 11101

Artists: Benjamin Gaulon, Joan Healy, ColleenKeough, Margaret O’Brien,Matthew Nevin, Katherine Nolan,
Ciara Scanlan, Stephen Woods

MART’s ‘Invite or Reject’ is an ambitious new Irish Visual Arts Exhibition curated by MART’s Ciara Scanlanand Matthew Nevin. The show consists of 15 selected Irish artists to create new work spread over a three-city exhibition.

This the second leg of a 3 part exhibition opens in FLUX Fctory at 6pm on July 9th in FLUX Fctory. The first show opened in Chicago in June and will carry on to C4 Gallery Los Angeles in August. This exhibition shall showcase some of Ireland’s leading and emerging visual artists and highlight the strength of Artists in the international contemporary art scene. The work is challenging yet irresistibly welcoming for American audiences to interact and communicate with.

MART‘Invite or Reject’ refers to the duality of understanding and miscommunicationthat exists within Irish Emigration. It was common for the Irish to be rejected and treated as second-class citizens for the early part of 19th century. This Irish diaspora flocked to America for a better life away from famine, war and hardship, to help build a better America for today. In spite of over 37 million Irish Americans living today, the current political and social climate in America and Ireland, leaves it difficultto gain a working visa, leaving America more of a holiday destination for the Irish in stark contrast to its history.

MART is an Irish Visual Artist organisation. Our primary aim is to create a platform for New Media, Installation, Experimental Film, and Performance artists to showcase their work. MART was founded on an inclusive ethos, to inspire a curiosity for knowledge, to bring contemporary art to the forefront of culture by actively engaging people from all sectors of society in both its viewing and production.

Screening as part of PQ Quadrennial Prague

2011-07-12T16:51:00.006Z

Documentation of one of my performances in Berlin in July 2010 screened as part of MART's ////a////form////in////space/// , featured as part of PQ - the 11th Prague Quadrennial of Performance, Design and Space.

Location: The National Theatre, Prague. Czech Republic.
Date: Friday 24th June
Time:10:00 pm
Format : Film Screening

Artists:Darragh O'Callaghan, Molly O'Dwyer, Ciaran Hussey, Colleen Keough, Nicky Larkin,Eleanor Lawler, Matthew Nevin, Katherine Nolan, Emanuel Rohss, Ciara Scanlan.

Through the films shown in ////a////form////in////space//// we wish to touch on the intimacy and spectacle of the use of performance, visuality and space in experimental film. Each selected Artist works extensively in recontextualising space and the environment in which we inhabit. The artists question our notions of comfort and apathy in the world and push us reevaluate our role in society and place. From the subjective and personal to the distant and objective each work challenges the viewer.

Memoirs of Youth - new performance in collaboration with Eleanor Lawlor

2011-02-21T20:58:00.009Z

Photos courtesy of the little ride Adam Gibney

2011-02-17T18:51:00.020Z

I’m very excited to be performing a new collaborative piece this weekend, with artist Eleanor Lawlor.The piece is a response to the theme of Memoirs of Youth – an exhibition curated by Aine Macken, to correlate with publication of Volume II of Never Never and Elsewhere,This Sat Feb 19th at 7pm at ExchangeDublin.

This new work is still very much in flux and will be a collision of the two practices, at points which they both intersect and pull apart from eachother. I am interested in the dynamics that might occur between the Eleanor's use of the camera as a first person viewpoint, and the highly eroticized female body that is performed in my work. The collaboration feels full of possibility and tensions that might occur between homeliness and erotica, game playing and gazing, hiding and being seen, the safety or restriction of containment versus the vulnerability or pleasure of exposure.

Evolved at this point only through conversation, the piece will only finally come together on the night of the performance. This deliberately precarious method of working we hope will give a sense of urgency, risk and rawness to the piece. I’ll be flying by the seat of my pants, but at least I’ll be wearing some.

The context of Never Never and Elsewhere also presents a new venture for my practice. “An Irish queer literary journal dedicated to publishing creative, autobiographical and memoir writings”, could present a shift in the understanding or assumption of a heterosexualised dynamics of the gaze of mainstream culture, to a more complex understanding of erotic performance and spectatorship.

Never Never and Elsewhere is an Irish literary journal dedicated to publishing creative autobiographical and memoir writings by lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and trans writers. The title of Volume II is 'Memoirs of Youth' and includes writings from Senator David Norris, Ailbhe Smyth, Ciarán Rua, Stephen Quinn and Gillian Watt, amongst others.

Working with curator and visual artist Aine Macken, 'Memoirs of Youth' has collected imagery from seven artists. Facilitated by Exchange Dublin, there will be a dedicated location to launch the limited edition publication with exciting new work both being exhibited and within the publication itself.

Artists include Peter Fingleton, Catherine Harty, Gerry Lee, Kieran McBride, Katherine Nolanand TueMeTues , along with a new body of work from Áine Macken's own practice. There will be workshops and events occurring throughout the week including a special workshop from Gerry Lee (a recent graduate with an MA in Art Therapy) on Wednesday at 7pm. The night of Saturday the 19th of February will see Katherine Nolan perfoming a brand new piece along with selected personal readings from the journal from 7pm.

All contributors are responding to the theme of the collection and viewers can expect both written and visual works operating within the complicated sphere of the memoir, the record, and the creative response to one's influence and history.

Launch on Saturday, 19 February 2011, 7pm
Exhibition 14th to 20th February.
Exchange Dublin, Exchange Street Upper, Temple Bar

MART: Kickstarter

2011-01-28T10:45:00.005Z

MART is a platform that supports emerging and established artists show their work internationally. They are an incredibly inclusive, generous and dynmaic organization who support the work of artist's like me by providing opportunities to show and develop work in creative and supportive atmosphere.

MART have helped made my work happen over the last 2 years, so please help them make their upcoming project happen by donating to their fundraising initiative on KICKSTARTER

Donating even £5 will help support this vibrant and important initiative. A message from them below.

MART is looking for your support raising funds for our planned North American Exhibition this summer.

Invite or Reject is an ambitious new exhibition to be held in New York, Chicago & Los Angeles from the Irish Arts Organisation MART , it refers to the duality of understanding and miscommunication that existed when Irish people first immigrated to America. MART is a non profit art organisation based in Ireland. This exhibition shall showcase some of Ireland’s leading and emerging visual artists and highlight the strength of our work in the international contemporary art scene.
We need your help to make this happen and would love for you to support our exhibition by gleefully asking you for your kind support through our KICKSTARTER fundraising page, you can back 5, 10, 25, 50 and higher to help us make this happen - Plus you get some exciting Rewards for doing so ... T-Shirts, DVD's, Art Works, Photographs, dinners out and much much more!!! Our target is $5000 and if we dont reach it we don't recieve any of the funds...so we really do need your help!! If a lot of people donate an amount we can reach it!!!

Please check out KICKSTARTER and back our project and receive some exciting rewards :

Please help us out and also spread the word on any websites, groups or your social network

We hope you all can donate a little and spread the word.
From The Lovely Curators of MART

In View : Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast. 10th Dec - 29th Jan

2010-12-02T07:47:00.025Z

I will be performing live as part of In View exhibition at the Golden Thread GalleryBelfast on Friday 10th of December. Developing previous enactments of Surface Attention this performance further seeks to twist the erotic spectacle, attempting to elicit responses somewhere between the voyeuristic and empathetic.

This is followed by In Conversation discussion panel on Sat 11th Dec. My video works You are A Very Naughty Boy! and Silver Screen Shimmy(2009)will also be screened as part of the exhibition.

In View
10th December 2010 – 29th January 2011
Opening 6pm – 8pm

In View is an exhibition that establishes a context from which to explore the tensions and dialogues concerned with the physical act of looking. The gaze holds multiple interpretations, such as the voyeuristic, scopophilic, erotic; and is as much dependant upon the viewer, as that which is being viewed. Each artist challenges us to consider our role as a viewer of the works on display, calling into question our gender, the gender of the artist, and our preconceived understanding of the subject, therefore highlighting the tensions that exist within the topic of the gaze.

In Vito Acconci’s video work Pryings (1971), his violent attempts to force open the eyes of his subject are difficult to watch, as is the challenging gaze of Laura O’Connor in her video work Dull, Limp, Lifeless (2010). Like O’Connor, Katherine Nolan encourages the viewer to watch her, and yet reprimands them for doing so. Her work, You Are a Very Naughty Boy! (2009), obscures our view of her at intervals, as if in punishment for gazing upon her scantily dressed body. The photographic works of Shaleen Temple take a slightly different approach, commenting on the level of control held by the gaze of the subject, the artist, and ourselves, the viewer. The exhibition also includes work from Phil Collins, Common Culture, Sara Greavu, Magaret Harrison, Noemi Lakmaier, ORLAN, and Aine Phillips.

Golden Thread Gallery, 84-94 Great Patrick Street, Belfast BT1 2LU
Opening Hours: Tuesday – Friday 10.30am - 5.30.pm & Saturday 10.30am – 4.00pm
Tel. +44(0)28 9033 0920 E. info@gtgallery.co.uk W. www.goldenthreadgallery.co.uk

Trans West : Collaboration with Joan Healy

2010-11-08T12:51:00.010Z

Documentation of work performed in collaboration with Joan Healy at the Molesworth Gallery, Dublin. Also preformed at Live Stock
in Market Studios, Dublin July 2010, and perhaps further mash-ups to come....

In a further interrogation of the nature of objectivity, Trans West is a collaboration with artist Joan Healy in which the body of the performance artist(s) is interrogated as artwork.

This collision of the two practices pushes and pulls understandings of what constitutes the artwork in performance. As two independently acting bodies intersect, authorship and art object are entangled in the intersubjective exchange. Processes of objectification are opened out as the body presses against the material object, and the material presses against the body. Indeed the very distinction between what and who, material and body, author and artwork are distended and collapsed in a fluid process of exchange and transfusion

Surface Attention. Space, Bratislava 13:07:10

2010-09-09T12:01:00.008Z

Raw footage of a live performance of Surface Attention at Space Gallery in Bratislava.

This industrial building, formerly used for coal storage, has been whitewashed into the ostensibly neutral space that characterizes the contemporary art gallery. The performance focuses on the idiosyncrasies of the architecture, namely the large black ramp that marks the buildings history. The female performer - also marked as erotic body by her black lingerie - spreads her body across the surfaces and structure of the iron framework. Investing her desires in the cold and inanimate, she raises questions in relation to her own vulnerability as object through the absurdly perverse and erotically ridiculous.

Surface Attention: The Box III, Berlin 28:07:10

2010-08-24T23:29:00.016Z

New Photographic works. Performance in Stattbad, Berlin.

Surface Attention: The Box II, Berlin 28:07:10

2010-08-24T17:19:00.022Z

Livestock, Dublin: New Performance

2010-07-30T18:05:00.006Z

I will be developing a new performance as part of Livestock, in
Market Studios, Dublin. Livestock events foster an experimental space in which artist's are encouraged to develop work in a live but supportive creative environment. This mobilizes the potential fluidity of performance, pulling and stretching artistic practice across and through disciplines, and fostering a crucial space for dialogue and exchange.

As a performance artist this presents a fantastic opportunity for work to be energized by the public moment and yet unconstrained by expectation. Emphasis on experimentation and creative exchange fosters a productive instability, which opens out performance practice and its critical contribution to contemporary culture and discourse.

The line up includes:
Katherine Nolan
Sinead McCann
Dominic Thorpe
Jess Kelly
Katherine Barragry
Valerie Joyce
The Troupe
Colm Clarke
Toymonger
Jennie Guy
Andy Behan
StephenDoyle
Kit McDermot

Sat 31st July, from 6.30 + rooftop party after!
This event is free, all welcome, BYOB.
The Market Studios,Corner of Mary’s Lane and Halston Street, Dublin 1. Map

Surface Attention The Pool: Berlin 21:07:10

2010-07-25T18:02:00.004Z

Surface Attention The Box: Berlin 21:07:10

2010-07-23T11:30:00.006Z

The tour continues...

Documentation of the evolving Surface Attention series as performed in Stattbad Berlin.

SPACE Bratislava: Surface Attention

2010-07-13T14:48:00.003Z

I will be performing a new piece Surface Attention in SPACE this Tues 13th 17th July as part of MART's An Instructional.

Surface Attention is a series of bodily interventions in gallery spaces across Europe, taking place in SHUNT London, Stattbad Berlin, Space Bratislava and Molesworth Gallery Dublin.

Continuing an exploration of the self as erotic body, this work implicates the frame of gallery space in a perverse female desire. Through the intimate physical contact of the skin with the architecture of the space the work opens out a narcissistic impulse in performance, literally and symbolically pushing it to the surface. The body pressed across surfaces of crumbling brick, cold concrete, bright blue tiles, or ostensibly neutral white walls become invested objects as the body moves between erotic, absurd and vulnerable.

MART , Visual Art Group provide a platform for new media, performance and installation artists. An Instructional: A Touring Exhibition comprises work collated under the principles of 'readymade' practices.

Surface Attention: Performance at SHUNT

2010-06-26T11:26:00.005Z

Surface Attention at SHUNT Thurs 25th - Sat 27th June 2010

2010-06-22T09:55:00.005Z

I will be performing a new piece Surface Attention in SHUNT this Thurs 25th- Sat 27th of June as part of MART's An Instructional.

Surface Attention is a series of bodily interventions in gallery spaces across Europe, taking place in SHUNT London, Stattbad Berlin, Space Bratislava and Molesworth Gallery Dublin.

Continuing an exploration of the self as erotic body, this work implicates the frame of gallery space in a perverse female desire. Through the intimate physical contact of the skin with the architecture of the space the work opens out a narcissistic impulse in performance, literally and symbolically pushing it to the surface. The body pressed across surfaces of crumbling brick, cold concrete, bright blue tiles, or ostensibly neutral white walls become invested objects as the body moves between erotic, absurd and vulnerable.

MART , Visual Art Group provide a platform for new media, performance and installation artists. An Instructional: A Touring Exhibition comprises work collated under the principles of 'readymade' practices.

The SHUNT lounge is a members' bar deep in the tunnels under London Bridge Station, hosting performance, music, film, installation and a bar that is open late. Many of these events will be in the early stages of development and presented for the first time.

SHUNT
20 Stainer St
(entrance under London Bridge station)
SE1 9LR
Entry: £5 Weds & Thurs/£10 Fri & Sat
come early to avoid queues

Map

Surface Attention: new performance work

2010-06-16T18:26:00.006Z

Surface Attention is a series of bodily interventions in the social and public space of the gallery/theatre. New work which will be performed in re-used spaces across Europe this summer.

Whether centre stage or roaming through the space, the female performer costumed and primed for erotic display in black lingerie, absurdly directs her performance to walls and corners. Finding gaps, nooks and protrusions in the architecture, she presses and squeezes herself across surfaces and into crevices, feeling and exploring the architecture with her skin.

This new work opens out the narcissistic impulse in performance, literally and symbolically pushing it to the surface. The performance space as frame - whether purpose built gallery, theatre, re-used industrial or leisure space -becomes implicated in the female performer's perverse desires. The work seeks to twist the voyeuristic gaze by presenting a spectacle that shifts between erotic, absurd and abject.

An Instructional: A European Tour

2010-06-16T17:37:00.009Z

I will be performing more disturbing kinks as part of
MART's European Tour which has kicked off in Bergen, Norway. The effervescent Ciara Scanlan and Mathew Nevin curate a dazzling line-up of video, installation and performance art across Europe including UK, Norway, Slovak Republic and Ireland. Hop on board the tour bus!

Seducing the Machine

2010-03-10T19:56:00.005Z

The Link Gallery, Epsom
Private View 19th March, 5.30
Exhibition runs from 20th March to 2nd April

Seducing the Machine is an exhibition of digital video and photographic work and marks the culmination of Nolan's doctoral research into narcissism, performance and contemporary feminist practice.

Nolan’s work is radical. She uses Narcissism as a critical tool, a way of fighting back. This may seem incongruous with much contemporary art but self love is fundamental to many an artist in their work. Of course, this is doubly the case for the female practitioner as Narcissism is commonly associated with women. Nolan employs this common conception and ‘flips’ it in her work, creating an exciting push and pull, between being in control and yet perhaps being vulnerable too. The artist turns a ‘trivial’ and ‘frivolous’ fixation with her own image into a critical weapon.

Over the course of the exhibition, Nolan addresses different modalities of feminine narcissism, playing with the autoerotic, self-reflexivity, vanity, masquerade, attention seeking hysteria and exhibitionism. A complex set of exchanges between the camera/viewer/self is also explored. Nolan’s original work unravels narcissism and twists its clichéd terms.

The Link Gallery, Epsom.
University for the Creative Arts
Ashley Road
Epsom
Surrey KT18 5BE
Mon-Thurs 9am - 8pm. Fri 9am - 5.30pm. Sat 10am -5 pm
Trains from Victoria and Waterloo to Epsom, take 35 mins.
UCA is 5 min walk from Epsom station

Enquiries to nolan.katherine@yahoo.ie.

Silver Screen Shimmy (2009)

2009-09-28T16:05:00.004Z

Silver Screen Shimmy, a two channel video piece, is a recording of live performance at the Galway Arts Festival as as part of MART's Open Door Policy

This saucy cabaret chick shows off her goods in Silkes shop window. Seduced by the lure of her black frills smalls and her red hot lips the viewer gets more than they bargained for.

Silver Screen Shimmy explores the screen as mirror and a slippery, elusive and distorting surface. This seeks to question modern forms of narcissistic display whilst still indulging the female subject's desire to razzle dazzle 'em.

The slippery surface of the screen starts to scupper her erotic performance, as if to communicates the danger of investment its shinny surface.As she slips down the screen she moves between erotic and wretched as she struggles to maintain what is left of the erotic pose. The female transcends from the classic narcissistic object to abject body, her desire to be looked at distorting her body through the contact with the screen.

The use of the dual screen contrasts the external spectacle with a more internal experience of the female performer. The two screens have a mirroring relationship to each other, their synchronicity materializing through the females movements. Yet an asymmetry between the two shots distances them, suggesting a mirror of misrecognition as well as narcissistic identification.

Silver Screen Shimmy at Visual Deflections

2009-09-23T16:37:00.008Z

Images of Silver Screen Shimmy in installation and projection as premiered in Visual Deflections . This two screen video piece is a recording of live performance at the Galway Arts Festival as as part of MART's Open Door Policy

Silver Screen Shimmy explores the screen as mirror and a slippery, elusive and distorting surface. This seeks to question modern forms of narcissistic display whilst still indulging the female subject's desire to razzle dazzle 'em.

Visual Deflections Featuring Piplotti Rist

2009-09-23T16:24:00.002Z

Press release for Visual Deflections a project that I have co-curated and featuring the premiere of my video Silver Screen Shimmy

Visual Deflections featuring Piplotti Rist

Curated by Eleanor Lawler and Katherine Nolan
Corbet Place: Sat 29th August 2009, 6.30pm till late

(Entlastungen) Pipilottis Fehler <(Absolutions) Pipilotti’s Mistakes>, 1988, video by Pipilotti Rist (video still). Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Piplotti Rist’s pioneering video work has been aspirational for a generation of emerging artists. This event will screen a selection of these artists alongside Rist’s (Absolutions) Pipilotti’s Mistakes. Her influence is reflected in the concept of Visual Deflections, a homage to her use of disjuncture and distortion

The idea of Visual Deflections infers the interruption of the image through distortions of time, movement, light and space. It may also suggest a manipulation of assumptions and identifications that reverberate between the spectator and screen

The works will be shown as a screening from 6.30 Sat, and video installation will continue until Sun 11pm. The venue, Corbet Place , is part of the The Old Truman Brewery at the heart of Shoreditch’s vibrant creative scene. The brickwork of the club provides a stripped back aesthetic for the screening, which will be followed by music curated by Back to the Wood

Artists: Piplotti Rist, Clint Enns, Ted Sonnenschein, Tessa Garland, Katherine Nolan , Eleanor Lawler, Jonathan Gilhooly, Jan Hakon Erichsen, Ciara Scanlan, Victoria Melody, Anders Weberg, Theo Tagholm,Lisa Flynn, Hillary Williams, Mathew Guillford , Alan Magee, Jeremy Newman, Saskia Vermeulen, Angelo Picozzi , Liam Herne, Sarah Breen Lovett, Ella Bertilsson , Lia Chavez, Vanessa Daws.

Corbet Place
The Old Truman Brewery
15 Hanbury St
E1 6QR
Tube: Liverpool St
MAP
6.30 pm till late
Free Entry

New Performance Piece at Galway Arts Festival

2009-08-06T17:44:00.004Z

This is a new piece performed live at the Galway Arts Festival as as part of MART's Open Door Policy The work developed around the idea of using the shop window as a 'screen'. The Screen acts as a two-way membrane, desires and fears being projected both from within an without. The female object within the screen slips from the classic narcissistic object to wretched, abject body, her desire to be looked at distorting her body through the contact with the screen.

Performance live: MART at the Galway Arts Festival 24-26 July 09

2009-07-21T20:40:00.008Z

I will be performing a new, as yet untitled piece, as part of
MART's Open Door Policy at the Galway Arts Festival. Taking place on the evenings of 24,25 and 26 July in Silkes Shopfront, Sea Road, Galway (9pm approx).

This new work continues the transition of my practice from studio to live performance, and in this instance substitutes the display window for the camera as the object of the narcissist's attention. The desire to be looked at pushes the female body from traditional feminine object to the abject, contrasting these states as modalities of the spectacle. This begins to question modern forms of narcissistic display whilst still indulging the female subject's desire to razzle dazzle 'em.

Naughty Boy Live at SHUNT

2009-06-26T13:01:00.011Z

You Are a Very Naughty Boy! LIVE performed June 2009 at SHUNT as part of an exhibition by MART platform for New Media, Performance and Installation artists.

This work transposed my performance practice from the the safety of the studio and an intimate relationship with the camera, to the potent uncertainty of the live moment. Thus the dialogue with an imagined viewer becomes a face-to face encounter with a live audience who become implicated in the performance through the live projection of the performance context which becomes mise-en-scene.

In this slightly ludicrous yet sultry performance, a vamp-like female in stockings and stilettos plays a game of punishing the male viewer for his desiring gaze. Initially seductive, her performance escalates into a hysteria that is simultaneously threatening and humorous. The promise of seductive performance descends into a hysteria that is both threatening and humorous.

Contrasting the live with the mediated, the work raises questions around the ethics of spectatorship and representation of the erotic female body. In particular the narcissistic motivation of the performer in her self-objectification, and the role of the viewer as both voyeur and image, trouble comfortable viewing.

Naughty Boy live at SHUNT in association with MART

2009-06-18T12:54:00.013Z

I will be performing a LIVE version of my video piece You Are a Very Naughty Boy! at SHUNT on Wed 24th June until Sat 28th. The performance will take place in conjunction with a live feed through a projector, contrasting the live with the mediated. Beyond the safety of the studio and an intimate relationship with the camera, I hope that the performance will become a dialogue with the audience extending my exploration of the feminine as spectacle. Watch this space!

The SHUNT lounge is a members' bar deep in the tunnels under London Bridge Station, hosting performance, music, film, installation and a bar that is open late. Many of these events will be in the early stages of development and presented for the first time.

SHUNT
20 Stainer St
(entrance under London Bridge station)
SE1 9LR
Entry: £5 Weds & Thurs/£10 Fri & Sat
come early to avoid queues
Map

The performance is part of a group show by MART a collective based across Ireland and the UK, that provides a platform for New Media, Performance and Installation artists.

Artists and work include:

LISA MARIE JOHNSON - The Parameters of the Gothic - PERFORMANCE
KATHERINE NOLAN - You Are a Very Naughty Boy LIVE- PERFORMANCE
MATTHEW NEVIN - The Expansion Effect - INSTALLATION
CIARA SCANLAN - The Narcissus dinner party - INSTALLATION / VIDEO
IVAN TWOHIG - Satellites of the Abstract Referential - INSTALLATION
ADAM GIBNEY – INSTALLATION / VIDEO
JOAN HEALY – Becoming a Franz West - INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE
NATALIE ZERVOU - INSTALLATION

La Cat Salon Friday 19th June 2009

2009-06-16T18:03:00.003Z

My video You Are a Very Naughty Boy will be screened in the La Cat Salon at
The Back Loft this Friday 19th June. beginning at 8pm there is an eclectic mix of video, performance and music.

The line up:
Oil & Blood (old style acoustic American music)
Sean Dunne (theatrical performance)
Victor Feldman (voice performance)
Coco La Bouche (comedy sketch)
Katherine Nolan (video)
"Rooflanders" by Sven Werner (short film)
"Tango in D Minor" by maurizio usai (short film)
VIDEO ART in the alcove by:
Laura O'Connor
Daryl Slein
Seamus Bradley - 'Steady State No. 1'

9th 8pm
Entry €8/€5
The Back loft
La Catedral studios
7-11 St. Augustine Street,
Dublin
Map

Live at the Apollo

2009-06-02T19:05:00.008Z

My work is being shown in The Apollo in Herne Hill. A group of local creatives have taken over the abandoned video store for a month of events showcasing art, film, music and performance provided by local talent and high profile artists.The local community has pulled together to support the venture.

My video work will be shown along side an eclectic mix of creative work, its position under the counter a tongue-in-cheek framing of its erotic nature as 'elicit'.

The story of the creation of the project has been published on-line by
Time Out .

The Apollo ,
19 Norwood Rd,
London SE24.
Opening 4th June 2009, 6pm
Runs until 4th July

FORTHCOMING: Performance at SHUNT

2009-06-01T20:49:00.005Z

In association with MART I will be performing/showing new work in SHUNT London on Wed 24th -27th June 2009.

SIMULTAN05 [Trans:position]

2009-05-21T19:32:00.003Z

You Are a Very Naughty Boy! (2007) is also currently being shown as part of SIMULTAN05 [Trans:position] in Athens, Greece.

The SIMULTAN Festival is an annual festival for video, media art, experimental electronic music and a/v projects.

The festival wishes to sustain and to stimulate the creative ways of the most modern visions of perceiving and recording the cultural realities in contemporary art. It presents the current processes and the way in which technology and society give rise to new forms of artistic expression by using the new media.

Based on a different theme every year, the festival presents video art projections, live performances, installations, lectures.

This year’s edition runs under the theme Trans:position and will take place on 21-23 May, 2009, in Timisoara, Romania.

SIMULTAN05 | video

As in the previous years, the festival will present the most challenging and innovative video art works submitted for the competition program by artists from all around the world.More than 100 video works will be screened in the festival, which also includes hosted selections. Click here for the programme

SIMULTAN05 | music & sound

On the 22nd and 23rd, in the evenings, at the Synagogue will take place live concerts andsound performances.

Bernhard Gál [At]
eRikm [Fr]
Robert Piotrowicz [Pl]
Makunouchi Bento [Ro]
Tetsuya Hori [Jp/De]
Manami N [Jp/De]

For programme information visit www.simultan.org

OPA 0.2 Second International Festival (On Performance Art)

2009-05-13T16:33:00.008Z

15th-30th May 2009
Athens, Greece.

My video work You Are a Very Naughty Boy! (2007) will be shown in OPA 0.2 in Athens, Greece. It will screened daily daily at BIOS from 20-24 Μay in the section "Documented performances on Postproduction"

Following its successful first edition in March 2007, ΟPA festival (on performance art) is being established as a yearly event. The raising interest for the art of performance, the participation of young artists as well as historical figures of performance and the public and private institution’s, and media support have created a meeting point for the art of performance in our country and internationally. For two consequent weeks, artists and audience meet the most live art
form.

Re-Think/ Re-use/ Re-make: Propositions and Possibilities on contemporary performance art. Based on Nicolas Bourriaud’s (French curator and theorist) book Post-Production

‘Since the early nineties, an even increasing number of artworks have been created on the basis of preexisting works; more and more artists interpret, reproduce, re-exhibit, or use works made by others or available cultural products. The material they manipulate is no longer primary. It is no longer a matter of elaborating a form on the basis of a raw material but working with objects that are already in circulation on the cultural market, which is to say, objects already informed by other objects. Notions of originality (being at the origin of) and even of creation (making something from nothing) are slowly blurred in this new cultural landscape’ (Bourriaud, 2005:7).

“Post-production” is a technical term from the audiovisual vocabulary that is used in television, film and video. It refers to a line of processes in recorded material: montage, use of other audiovisual materials, subtitling, voice-overs and special effects. In a line of activities connected with service provider industry and recycling, post- production belongs in a tertiary sector, contrary to the industrial or rural sector that produces primary material.

Knowing Through Making

2008-09-17T09:42:00.004Z

Knowing through Making:
Practice-based doctoral exhibition and conference

University for the Creative Arts at Epsom
10th – 22nd October 2008

Knowing through Making will reflect upon the vibrant student research culture at the University for the Creative Arts through an exhibition and conference. The conference and exhibition aim to create a dialogue between individual research projects and their methodological approaches, in order to critically reflect upon practice led scholarship in the visual arts.

The opening of Knowing through Making will be marked by keynote speaker Dr Lucy Soutter from the London College of Communication, University of Arts London. Her recent publications include, Enigmatic Spectacle: Key Strategies in Contemporary Staged Photography, Role Models.

Conference 10th Oct 12pm – 5.45 Lecture Theatre Epsom
Followed by Private View at 6pm at The Gallery at Epsom
Exhibition runs until 22nd Oct

Spaces at the conference are limited so booking is essential.
Please contact: Mary O’Hagan at the Research Office.

mohagan@ucreative.ac.uk

You Are a Very Naughty Boy! (2007)

2007-06-30T11:22:00.002Z

My New video 'You Are a Very Naughty Boy!' (2007) created for Transcabaret can be viewed here

Dark smoky eyes stare at the camera and she insists to the viewer “You are a very naughty boy”. In this slightly ludicrous yet sultry performance, a dominating female solicits male masochistic pleasure: a parody of simplistic reversals of the traditional viewing scenario of the active male look and sexualized, passive female. The assertive ‘punishing’ stamp of the female lifts the shutter revealing the female object in the spotlight. For an instant, the male is indulged with a peepshow of black stockings and frills, before the shutter snaps abruptly down. Initially seductive, her performance escalates into a hysteria that is simultaneously threatening and humorous.

The work relies on the simulation of a photographic apparatus via the video camera. Thus playing with the nature of the screen, meshing the ‘making’ space with the ‘viewing’ space of the visual artwork. This simulates a ‘live’ performance whilst lending the female control of her image through the camera apparatus. You Are a Very Naughty Boy!evokes voyeuristic pleasures of the cinema and the burlesque performance and yet intervening in familiar codes of spectatorship as the screen of projection intermittently becomes a violent shutter to the peep show.

Showroom 3: Trans-Cabaret

2007-06-30T11:05:00.000Z

Showroom 3: Trans-cabaret a live art and performance
event transgressing notions of cabaret, variety, and burlesque.Trans-cabaret features live art, performance, video,
burlesque, one toone intimate exchanges, and interventions by featured
artists:

Annette FosterTransgression: Transgressa

Tom MarshmanFinding My Inner Cowboy

Jiva Parthipan Al Queda Ballet

Lazlo Pearlman Le Grande Bouffe

Benjamin Mitchell "Daddy Loves His Job (Don't WorryPrincess)" AKA "Gay Man's Frug"

Katherine Nolan a live art and performance "You are a very naughty boy!" (2007)

Rachel Parry Baba Yaga's Bastard child

Sam Rose Between One and Another: Untitled (Work InProgress)

With Special Guests.......
The Deville Dolls Burlesque Troupewho will behostesses throughout theevening, as well as making a special guestperformance.

DJ Lord Ivor Hardshafte Gramophonic/ Jukebox Masterwill be playing the finest tunes from the 1920's-1950's throughout the
evening.

And added extra's......
Look out for...... Chocolate cigarette hostesses.
Let your hair down and dance into the early hours withTrans-cabaret 'club' 12:00- 2:00 a.m.

Audiences are encouraged to dress to impress invintage, burlesque, ordrag !

For further information go to
www.myspace.com/transcabaret

Visual Deflections

2007-03-21T14:13:00.001Z

In collaboration with artist colleague, I have put out a call for submissions. Visual Deflections is a showcasing opportunity for new and emerging artists working in film/video/moving image. The project aims to stage screening(s) to provide an opportunity to engage with contemporary artists working with the moving image

Work will be selected around the idea of Visual Deflections, which infers the disruption of a straightforward linear story through distortions of the time, movement and space of the film/video. The concept may also suggest an interruption of the gaze where desires and identifications are intrusively reflected back to the viewer.

Female performative work -Dublin

2007-02-16T11:19:00.000Z

Postcards from the edge, Friday 2nd March in the Back Loft, is an upcoming showcase of women's performative body art. The line-up is international and seeks to contrast contemporary works from various gergraphical locations. It's great to see some young female perfomative work happening in Dublin. From the stills indcluded in the blog there appears to be a variety of appraoches from the playfully ironic in Agatha Gothe-Snape's Troubled Waters to raunch drawing on soft-porn culture in Motel Sisters' Pink Thang. Looking forward to attending the show!

Mulvey: Death 24 X A Second

2007-02-15T13:18:00.000Z

Have finally got hold of Mulvey's new book Death 24 X A Second. The book offers some interesting progressions on the nature of the spectatoship. The "pleasure of decipherment" supplements notions of fetishistic and voyueristic viewing pleasures. I will explore how this becomes gendered in I get it 5 times a day. There is an interesting post-graduate of review Mulvey's book at Sacred Media Cow, that also raises the questions about how contemporary internet viewing experiences are altering the nature of specatorship.

On-line Video Art Gallery

2007-02-15T12:41:00.000Z

I came across an exciting new on-line gallery, at Saatchi. From what I can gather, it appears to be a free, easy way to exhbit work on-line. Though there are other sites that do this, there are so many naff ones. Though the content is variable, this one seems to have at least some interesting and ciritcal work from emerging artists- which means a great context to show work in and also a useful interesting research tool (helpful towards the aul ' original contribution to knowledge').The Saatchi name may arouse inerest also, though it may put off as many as it attracts!

One of the artists that I found interesting was Stephanie Simek. Her exploration of temporaily in relation to video and the photograph, has many resonances to Mulvey's discussion of Barthes in Death 24xsecond.

My pleasure

2007-02-06T17:48:00.000Z

Images from a new video that I have made in relation to pleasure in the male gaze. I assert my framing of the image at the start of the footage, adjusting the angle of the video camera. From then on I am responding to the male gaze. The film begins to pick ups pace and begins to click rapidly with the shutter of the still camera. This gives great energy to the piece, as I giggle along with the flash and shutter, flirting with the male behind the camera.

Negotiating Pleasure in The Male Gaze in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber

2007-01-12T16:43:00.000Z

Below is the abstract I submitted for the Carter conference. In the end I decided that the best contribution that I could make to the conference would be via my studio work, as my area od specialist expertise. I screened the video 'I get it 5 times a day', and discussed how Carter's literary construction of a complex gaze speaks to the work, in relation to female narcissistic pleasure.

The Narcissistic Erotic: Negotiating Pleasure in The Male Gaze in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber

The imagery in Angela Carter’s short story The Bloody Chamber is both rich and opulent, and disturbingly gruesome. It is such stark contradictory concepts in the nature of Carter’s writing that lead Alison Easton to warn the feminist reader against ‘Identifying cosily’ (2000:4) with the story’s characters. The uncomfortable nature of the identification offered to the reader is evident in the narcissistic fantasies of the young bride in the story. As she searches for the, as yet undiscovered, erotic self in the eyes of the ominous and towering figure of ‘bluebeard’ there is a tension, of both sexual excitement and fear of the unknown. In this paper, I will examine the narcissistic pleasure offered to the female reader in this text, employing feminist film theory’s psychoanalytic structuring of the gaze in relation to gender. Gaylyn Studlar challenges Laura Mulvey’s seminal text Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema in which a male viewer subjects the female to a sadistic gaze. Studlar proposes that visual pleasures in the cinematic tend rather towards the masochistic, for both male and female viewers. How does this re-theorization of the classic gaze allow a reading of the literary construction of looking in Carter’s short story? In particular, the narcissistic pleasures offered to the female reader via an identification with the young bride, that resembles Mulvey’s original positioning of the female in relation to the cinematic gaze. This paper will probe whether pleasure in Carter’s difficult imagery can be accounted for by Studlar’s masochistic aesthetic. Carter percolates the male desire of de Sade through the agency of a female erotic subjectivity explicitly in The Sadeian Woman and more covertly in The Bloody Chamber via the young bride. In The Bloody Chamber the gaze is inscribed not simplistically as male or female, sadistic or masochistic, but as a complex relation of reflections of the look:
“ When I saw him look at me with lust, I dropped my eyes, but in glancing away from him, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. And I saw myself, suddenly, as he saw me”(Carter, 1979:11.). Ultimately the question that I will ask is, when the narcissistic pleasure in being the object of the male gaze is performed through a female erotic subjectivity how/is the masochistic potential of the position transformed?

Sugar Lips (2007)

2007-01-10T12:13:00.001Z

Voyuerism...Narcissism?

2007-01-09T15:05:00.000Z

This is an attempt to entice the voyeur with a 'secret' glimpse up the skirt. Yet I return the gaze, further into the image, as a smiling eye peeps over the shoulder. Distance in the image is starting to replace the role of time in the image - to create a space between the luring of the gaze and it's inception by the returned gaze of the erotic object. In practice then, to this points it seems as if there has to be real effort put into balancing Mulvey's voyueristc male and narcissistic female pleasures. This would seem to indicate a relevance for her theory to contemporary imagery, despite its many challenges

I like the foregrounding of the leg in this image. It leg is quite shapely and, a shadow falls on the curve of the calve making it appear sculptural. The thigh look slender and the old fashioned 50’s seam of the stocking leads the eye up the leg to what is hidden under the skirt. This is more successful than the other two versions of the shot because in one the shoulder of the jumper have slipped down showing the bra strap (top right). This just make the image look too slutty or porno. It makes it look like I’m trying to hard, a bit desparate to get attention. It also narrows the possibility of the viewer having stumbled upon the scene. The more diagonal angle I have outright rejected. It just feels like the viewer is drunk fell on the floor, got a glimpse of leg but is too wasted to appreciate it or probably remember.

The narcissist and the voyeur

2007-01-09T12:11:00.000Z

Again there is the feeling of me being on a pedastal - as the narcissist wishes to be- and the viewer watching from a voyeuristic position below. This was taking with a male photographer and my expression is one that would not have come about via usual method of working solo, as I am reacting to the person behind the camera. There is genuine pleasure in the smile that acknowledges the gaze. Though this perhaps breaks the tension of the voyeuristic position. This is the crux of the problem that I am trying to address.

Angela Carter Symposium

2007-01-09T11:27:00.000Z

I spoke at an Angela Carter Symposium in University of Exeter before christmas. It was a great conference, there was real enthusiam for the subject and the atmosphere was relaxed enough that people felt comfortable to speak. Both of which made for lively discussion.

I screened the video piece, I get it 5 times a day and discussed in it in the context of the literary construction of the gaze in Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber'. There were some very interesting comments on the work. Paricularly interesting to screen the work to an entirely female, and I assume feminist audience.

Charlotte Croft commented that she felt uncomfortable, due to the disorientating effect of the mirror - before even consdiering gender issues. (As a film maker, she was able to detect this)There was also comments that an uncomfortable feeling was evoked because the viewer knew the kind of (controlling? erotic? masculinsed?) gaze that they were subejcting me to. (Informed by the feminist knowledge of that particular audience).

The male gaze?

2007-01-08T17:36:00.000Z

In exploring methods for exploiting the male gaze, I have tried using a male photographer. I am currently exploring how this affects the images. Firstly, does it compromise the narcissistic nature of the practice by involving another in the process, or enhance it? How much less do these become 'my images' when some of the control is relinquished? As I explore outcomes of the shoot, interesting issues have arisen that reflect back upon the assumptions of the practice. The narcissistic pleasure is possbily in the reviewing of the images rather than simply in the performance. In deed the performance often requires a masking of feelings (uncomfortable due to akward pose etc), and a feigning of the desired effect. This leads me to question how it is that the narcissistic pleasure of the female in being looked at can be demonstrated in the image.

I get it 5 Times a Day

2006-12-04T15:00:00.001Z

I get it 5 times a day is a homoursly ironic performance of a clichéd seduction. The viewer is directly addressed with playful eye contact and flirtatious body language, such that they can’t help but believe this flattery is for them. Suddenly they become implicated within the frame of image as the luscious red fruit is dangled in front of them. The nature of the gaze becomes unstable as the screen seems to flicker between a translucent and reflective surface The distortion of the pictorial space has a disorientating effect, so that the erotic pleasure offered to the viewer is challenged by the frustration of the urge to decipher the viewing apparatus. The uncomfortable pleasures of I get it 5 times a day are an inquiry into self-gratification in the image, in an increasingly mediated culture.

Fetishism/Masochism

2006-12-04T11:31:00.000Z

Studlar argues for the development of the fetish with the pre-, rather then post- Odepial phase. In the relation between the child at the breast and the return of the mothers gaze, if the mother is removed this can be the instigation for fetish. The depandancy of the child on the mother is noted in the development of masochism, which has strong relations to the oral. This is as opposed to Freud's assertion that it is at then moment of the discovery of sexual difference, that the fetish becomes crystalised. Thus often associated with looking up the mothers skirt. It is interesting that as I read on this, the practice has moved from from the mouth as the site for pleasure in 'I get it 5 times a day', to the legs in an up the skirt view in these new studio sketches

Sexy legs!

2006-11-28T12:23:00.000Z

Methodology:storyboarding

2006-11-23T09:12:00.000Z

Here again I am using the “storyboarding” technique (as with the Kissing video etc). In film making/animation storyboards are used to plan shoots. I work more organically, by shooting then storyboarding to re-structure the narrative and then re-shooting. It allows; my behavior to be off the cuff in the first instance keeping the video fresh; and for the narrative to evolve for my narcissistic reaction to the camera and my perceived viewer. In this case a male web user/pervert or a female gazing via the logic of this gaze.

Can't take my eyes off you too

2006-11-23T09:10:00.000Z

Can’t take my eyes off of you

2006-11-23T09:07:00.000Z

The introduction of music to my video work again I find interesting. Most particularly how the rhythm of the actions can unexpectedly rhyme with the action of the video. I’ve tried 2 songs. Neither work in terms of the mood I’m trying to supplement in the piece, or as regards what I’m trying to say. I want something cheesy and smoochy. I guess that I’m trying to imitate my interpretation of what a corny video someone would put of themselves on the web, in order to become the looked at. The lyrics and their interaction with the piece are interesting though.

“Can’t take my eyes off of you” /“Can’t get you out of my head”
Male/Female: Can’t- take/get, my/you, eyes/head, off/out, you/my.

I have structured the music either in terms of adding drama to the climax (punctum? Barthes Camera Lucidia) and to interact with the above sequence of actions. P.S. My legs look rotten in these, I want to cut them off - de Sade would approve.

She's a dirty bitch!

2006-11-16T22:43:00.000Z

These are some stills from a experimental sequence that I’m shot in September. I was considering the internet as regards my practice at the time, as this is my response to the idea of placing myself in that context. I deliberately made the piece look domestic and amateur. The details such as the Ann Summers commonly sexy baby doll, the pink lamp on the bedside table etc. are important. The intention was to locate a narcissism that seems to hover around peoples on-line imagery of themselves trying to be sexy. I've selected one of the more wholesome images from the start of the video and one towards the climactic ending. Though I find myself being quite self-conscious about outing the more sexualized of the images online even though none are explicit. This is not a line of work that I’m going to pursue, though worth noting as an initial engagement with the idea of the work on-line. I also set the footage to music- a learning experience, but like the shoot the content isn’t worth taking further.

Lilith

2006-11-16T20:20:00.000Z

Lilith desires to be desired, to be looked at by a man. For his eyes and hands to caress her and tell her she is beautiful, curvaceous, feminine. There is a structue evident within a paragraph of the story for the textual construction of female pleasure in relation to the male gaze.

The description of Lilith’s fantasy starts off slowly, teasingly.
There is a savoring of each moment; each look, glance and touch; each new revelation of flesh as if it was the first peek under the mothers skirt, and there is a rising throbing to see what velvety delight is next.
Then, the touches then become rougher,
more impassioned, less restrained.
He becomes impatient, grabs her.
He bites and tears
in the frenzy
to devour
her
.

“He will get impatient with the skirt, tear at it a little. He will be in such a state of desire. He will not put out the light. He will keep looking at me with his desire, admiring me, worshiping me.” (Nin, 1969)

Reading Delta of Venus

2006-11-16T19:52:00.000Z

Nin’s stories are so exotic and sensuous in themselves, that it just won’t do to read them in a banal or familiar place. In order to identify myself with them in some way, I need to place myself in a similar situation. Thinking back to LA, when I read Nin’s 'Little Birds', tales of dark haired, sultry lovers and impassioned chance encounters with strangers. These stories seem bathed in the soft romantic glow of the Moroccan restaurant, the taste of heavy aromatic spices and the delicate tang of white wine around my tongue and lips. It’s hard to feel romantic on a Ryanair flight. It feels like I’m in fast food restaurant. The bright yellow just seems to say Ronald McDonald, not Delta of Venus.

Now I'm sitting at the same table as an elderly couple in the British Library. Once again I imagine myself being looked at, as I become self-conscious about exposing an erotic book in public. I wonder if they know what I’m reading? The pattern of birds and flowers on her jacket are blurred, as I try to focus on my work. But the mulberry glow of her old lady hair is just too distracting. Avert you eyes, it’s just too revolting! There they go, off like a shot, as soon as they spy another table. It’s a pity the book doesn’t have pictures.

Anais Nin: Diaries of

2006-11-03T13:50:00.000Z

In the preface of the penguin edition of Anais Nin's Delta of Venus (1969) there are extracts from her diaries. These could be well worth following up. In the extracts she discusses 'motivation' for the erotica that she wrote, which has been influential on my won fiction wiriting. The stories were continually commissioned by 'an old man' for money. She and her writer/poet friends imagine this man as an old pervert, with no passion just a need for graphic sex. His anonymous comments on her writing every time was 'leave out the poetry'.

Her discussion of this production of a 'feminine' erotic voice in response to a male desire draws up interesting issues around gendered authorship.

“I believed that my style was derived from a reading of men's works. For this reason I put the erotica aside. Rereading it these many years alter, I see that my own voice was not completely suppressed. In numerous passages I was intuitively using a woman's language, seeing sexual experience from a woman's point of view." (Nin, 1976)

I quote this not to suggest that a female author automatically gives rise to a female voice. Rather it highlights the power of an erotic female subjectivity - that in a forced response to even a seedy male gaze, that Nin found her own voice, her own pleasures, her own desires.

Framing Blog

2006-11-03T12:55:00.001Z

I’m still considering the framing of the blog.

RE: the title. I have been thinking about calling it a name that might attract some (male) comments: something with babe, or hot, or blonde. I don’t know! Will continue to think of words that men might search under, though this would have to be very considered. Or words that feminists might search under? Categories for posts is something else to consider. Perhaps under key words.

I've been looking at other blogs. Bloggers seem to be involved in blogging communities, which is I guess how blogs perpetuate. This I think must take a lot of time blogging on your own and other blogs. I don’t think this would be the most productive way to spend time on my project.

I've searched other blogs under key words. Femininity, Feminist, Narcissism, Gaze, Male gaze. Erotic.

Femininity:

Used in a wide variety of blogs. It pulled up a lot of 'popular' views on feminism, which I found excruciating to read.

Feminist

Carnival of Feminist is interesting it is a monthly newsletter of nominated posts that contain links to other threads. Some of which seem to be informed theoretically. Self-portraits edition, Blondestrawberry.com interesting name and logo

Erotic

Mostly explicit web porn surprisingly!, come erotic peotry

Male gaze and gaze:

Nothing of any real interest to the project, some on cinematic gaze.

Laura Mulvey:

An interesting book reference. “Remediation” Bolter and Grusin, chapter discussing the remediation of the gendered gaze.

Other blogs on the subject of narcissism:

unrequited narcissism - grouped personal sites, who just chose this as an interesting name. link to http://floridfauna.livejournal.com/?skip=40 - some interesting pictures in terms of female self-presentation
Supreme Narcissism - 'feminist' site: "Endless bitching about politics, film, religion, and personal entrepreneurship."
Narcissism In Words - gay male personal site
Narcissism 101 -gay male personal site

I'm so pretty

2006-10-30T18:35:00.000Z

I know this isn’t my usual style but it’s hilarious. I was dressing up for Halloween and couldn’t bring myself to do a half hearted effort, so of course I went overboard. The hair and make up took me ages to put on, not to mention to get off! In approached attending a fancy dress party with all the care I would put into an art piece, most of the other people at the part didn’t go to that much trouble, some didn’t even wear a pair of devil horns.

This makes an interesting point about narcissism or more specifically my narcissism. It doesn’t have to be about looking beautiful, jut about getting attention - as filtered through ones own narcissistic censoring agency. When considering what to dress as I thought Marilyn Monroe of course sprung to mind, because my previous academic interest in her and also having the suitable outfits and trimmings. But the artist in my didn’t want to do what girls usually do - go as something sexy or pretty, like a slinky cat woman. So a zombie Monroe occurred to me as drawing on both feminine iconicity and horror film gore. I really liked the juxtaposition of this. Sparkling diamonds and rotting skin.

It drew lots of attention at the party (which of course I loved), both because it was so disgusting and yet glamorous glitzy, and because I had obviously put in so much effort.

I liked being in the persona. It did something to all those rehearsed Marilyn poses from photo/video shoots. It is of course an extremely knowing incarnation of Monroe. The gore counteracts the cliché of the femininity whilst allowing a performance of the more fluffy, girlie side.

Elwes notes the tendency in contemporary art to recycle nostalgic imagery of Hollywood cinema. This speaks to a more mainstream, widespread tendency to nostalgically reiterate in today’s media saturated culture. A quote here seems particularly fitting and reveals a potential in the use of the affect of the glamour/gore juxtaposition persona within my practice.

“ The demise and ghostly resurrection of film seems to have been triggered by the proliferation of moving image delivery systems. Film theorists have now consigned ‘Cinema’ to a pre-digital past. The digital now marks a threshold before which we are likely to be watching a cast of dead people, spectral icons of Hollywood magically preserved and reanimated on celluloid” (Elwes, 2005, p. 168)

Elwes speaks in an uncanny tone of the effect of the digital era of video on cinematic imagery, entombing it in the past and swathed in nostalgia. Nostalgia being a dreaded attribute in the contemporary art as it seems to indicate a non-critical and indulgent subjectivity.

Certainly previous visual work has drawn on Monroe’s imagery, but I have withdrawn from obvious allusions to her image. Though I am still interested in the agency that a monroesque persona can afford in the performance of the feminine, the over-use of her image makes this difficult.

The use of the zombie Monroe could be a way of circumnavigating this problem. I’m attracted to it also because of the humor involved in it. It would be a sharp turn within my practice though, from subtle humor to the more farcical, though I have always seems to court the cliché. I’m cautious about the use of this person, but at the very least it has re-enlivened my narcissistic passion for dressing up which seemed to have gone astray.

Revisiting practice

2006-10-30T18:04:00.000Z

"Looking at my MA work and thinking about how it developed I realize that I have totally forgotten about my – narcissistic – interest in my body. Displaying it, looking at it, dressing it, looking good. It is not just the feminine behaviors that are important. I have become a decapitated mouth piece in my practice, all tongue and no tits." This is a quote form my reflective practice journal pre this blog (Oct 13). I'm posting I as an interesting moment that I want to highlight for myself, at this time when I am getting back into studio practice. I have deliberately chosen the more conservative of the images form the Bunny girl/Monroe series (2003), because...well because I'm so very conservative, or else just a tease.

Blogs

2006-10-25T13:06:00.000Z

Having set up the basic blog, I have been thinking about how I want it to look. How is it that I want to frame the research? I have looked at Toby's blog and it has a heading stating the nature and purpose. It is a mini-biography and outlines the entries as rigorous research, and not just random wanderings. I thought this was important as on the net it can be difficult to discern what people’s personal sites are about, or gauge the quality. This signpost heading grounds the blog in within the academic context, which seems to give it validity.

Initially I considered it would be a good idea to do this to mine also: perhaps to call it the "Narcissistic Erotic". By the very naming of the word narcissism seems to take the sting out of the self-indulgence of such scrutiny of my won image. Apart from the artistic guilt of copying, I've changed my mind because I think that I am attracted to the web simply because it could possibly attract all kinds of comments. For this reason I don’t want to indicate so explicitly that the blog concerned with a MPhil/PhD research. Rather to allow for the potential for it to interpreted as a subjective, personal site. This takes the narcissism out of the 'validating' academic context. This heightens the narcissism even further and also becomes a play on the nature of blogs. As time goes on, I may even have separate academic/'subjective' blogs. It's very narcissistic of me to think strangers will be so interested in the site anyway!

new video sketch

2006-10-24T16:30:00.000Z

I like the ambiguity in this image as to who my enthusiatic flirtation/regconition is for. Myself? In which case which self? Or a is it a (male) viewer, hidden out of shot behind the self in the foreground? I'm not sure what I think of the toilet location! It gives a feel of catching a private glimpse: just what is it that girls spend all that time in the bathroom doing? But it's far from luxurious. Certainly not the setting the narcissist would fantasize themselves in.

testing!

2006-10-24T16:24:00.000Z

testing