Re-Enactions (of a love affair) 2006
To view Re-Enactions
edited video footage go to:
www.youtube.com/ainephillips
Damen_Wahl,
Wolfsberg Castle, Austria 9th July 2006
Two performances, Part 1 & Part 2
Description of Performance - Part 1
I lie on a double bed, naked but covered by a 'beautifully' blood stained sheet and enact love making as if there is another person with me. The sheet is stained to resemble Rorschach 'ink blot' tests used in psychoanalysis. There are multiple screens projecting 4 video works as a backdrop to the performance elaborating themes of love and sexual encounter. The audience moves through the space freely.
My movements are rhythmic and sensual, explicitly relating to sexual intercourse but hidden from direct view. I hold a small light with me under the sheets to illuminate the contour of my body and movements.
Duration of piece
1 hour (variable) as audience move through the exhibition spaces on the opening night of the group show 'Damen_Wahl'.
Description of Performance - Part 2
I lie on a double bed, draped with sheets dyed to resemble blood stains as 'ink blot' test images used in psychoanalysis and deliver a spoken monologue, which is in part a dialogue with the audience and a monologue, a delivered performance script.
The script and dialogue combine with performance actions that represent events and experiences from love affairs in my life. The trajectory of the performance moves through attraction, consummation and transformation through love and sexual connection. The work is a relational exchange between artist and audience culminating in the shared physical embrace of a kiss.
The monologue incorporates poetic texts that are declarations of love and betrayal, disillusion but also positive experiences of relationship. Actions in the performance include the binding and freeing of my body with red rope woven with my hair, a 'show and tell' of emblematic objects (providing a visual narrative), the writing of text onto my body, the opening of my dress with a scalpel to show a scar and the offering of a kiss with willing members of the audience.
The video works are the backdrop, the subtext to the explicit performance, they function as the undertone of the work implying other meanings and allusions. They include images of love letters mottled with tear drops, intertwined burning rings, a woman's mouth making love to red, phallic flowers, a supine man's body on a floating bed.
Re-Enactions is a work that elaborates on life, mirrors and exposes life for the purpose of making one life emblematic and relating to all lives. (We have all lived the trajectory of a love affair from exquisite longings to tears) The purpose of the work is to present and enable sexual love as the theme for all human connection, to make an exchange and new forms of relationship with audience.
Duration of piece
45 minutes
edited video footage go to:
www.youtube.com/ainephillips
Damen_Wahl,
Wolfsberg Castle, Austria 9th July 2006
Two performances, Part 1 & Part 2
Description of Performance - Part 1
I lie on a double bed, naked but covered by a 'beautifully' blood stained sheet and enact love making as if there is another person with me. The sheet is stained to resemble Rorschach 'ink blot' tests used in psychoanalysis. There are multiple screens projecting 4 video works as a backdrop to the performance elaborating themes of love and sexual encounter. The audience moves through the space freely.
My movements are rhythmic and sensual, explicitly relating to sexual intercourse but hidden from direct view. I hold a small light with me under the sheets to illuminate the contour of my body and movements.
Duration of piece
1 hour (variable) as audience move through the exhibition spaces on the opening night of the group show 'Damen_Wahl'.
Description of Performance - Part 2
I lie on a double bed, draped with sheets dyed to resemble blood stains as 'ink blot' test images used in psychoanalysis and deliver a spoken monologue, which is in part a dialogue with the audience and a monologue, a delivered performance script.
The script and dialogue combine with performance actions that represent events and experiences from love affairs in my life. The trajectory of the performance moves through attraction, consummation and transformation through love and sexual connection. The work is a relational exchange between artist and audience culminating in the shared physical embrace of a kiss.
The monologue incorporates poetic texts that are declarations of love and betrayal, disillusion but also positive experiences of relationship. Actions in the performance include the binding and freeing of my body with red rope woven with my hair, a 'show and tell' of emblematic objects (providing a visual narrative), the writing of text onto my body, the opening of my dress with a scalpel to show a scar and the offering of a kiss with willing members of the audience.
The video works are the backdrop, the subtext to the explicit performance, they function as the undertone of the work implying other meanings and allusions. They include images of love letters mottled with tear drops, intertwined burning rings, a woman's mouth making love to red, phallic flowers, a supine man's body on a floating bed.
Re-Enactions is a work that elaborates on life, mirrors and exposes life for the purpose of making one life emblematic and relating to all lives. (We have all lived the trajectory of a love affair from exquisite longings to tears) The purpose of the work is to present and enable sexual love as the theme for all human connection, to make an exchange and new forms of relationship with audience.
Duration of piece
45 minutes
