Video Installation, Digital Video
2021
Link to Work Sample
Artist Statement
This is one channel of a three channel expanded video installation and performance that took place in the Public Access Television Station in Iowa City, IA. This was one of the last performances in the space before it was demolished in summer 2021.
"This series began as an expanded poem that uses vocoder technology and language as a portrait of transgender identity, specifically the relationship between visibility and violence. The work is informed by research in both transgender and sound studies. Bruno Latour wrote that the body is '-an interface that becomes more describable as it learns to be affected by more and more elements.' As a transgender person, creating work that uses my body allows me to better understand it, however, for all transpeople this is complicated by the relationship between visibility and violence. This piece explores the question of the value of visibility when it is simultaneously liberatory and dangerous. I am interested in complicating the definition of the body with the inclusion of technology. I believe that the inclusion of our digital technology in analysis of the self offers hope in understanding and expanding our bodies/interfaces.
'Anyone who’s been deemed ‘unnatural’ in the face of reigning biological norms, anyone who’s experienced injustices wrought in the name of natural order, will realize that the glorification of ‘nature’ has nothing to offer us.' - Helen Hester
Additional Information: Preimered at the Open Air Media Festival in Iowa City, Iowa in 2021.