“Eight”, Video Still, “One”.




“Eight”, Video Still, “Seven”.


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Video scene play:

“One” : [Mouthed] by a close up face - identifying as masculine.
Woman enters. She picks up a hand weight from the floor. She holds it above her head and lifts continuously until she can no longer.

“Two” : [Mouthed] 
Woman picks up a costume. A gold leotard with cut fringing on the hip. She puts it on.

“Three” : [Mouthed]
Woman shakes her ass. TWERK.

“Four” : [Mouthed]
Woman picks up a glass fluorescent tube. She throws it - it explodes upon impact to the concrete surrounding.

“Five” : [Mouthed]
Woman throws flour in the air and dances a routine silhouetted against light

“Six” : [Mouthed]
Woman drinks milk from a bowl. Like a cat.

“Seven” : [Mouthed]
Woman is instructed to eat. She cracks eggs into her mouth, eats a pomegranate, the juice running down her face and body. Woman swallows detergent, oil.

“Eight” : [Mouthed]
Woman ties herself up. Woman vomits. Woman cuts into her own, left leg.


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Performance scene play:

Performer appears as nude, apart from a fabric flower positioned on over her genetalia, reminiscent of Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Performer reaches into the flower, pulling from within the flowers orifice, through concealed compartment, a bread-dough-like sausage shape.

Performer pulls the entire sausage out,

She raises it to her face, and lets the contents - which are liquid - drip into her mouth from high up.

-video begins-

Performer interacts with the video persona of herself, a woman,
She copies the actions as explained from 1-8 in the Video scene play.

The performer is dragged off stage after the event by an onlooker.



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SlutWalk, where this was presented, is a a transnational movement calling for an end to rape culture, including victim blaming and slut shaming of sexual assault victims.

Specifically, participants protest against explaining or excusing rape by referring to any aspect of a woman's appearance.

EIGHT

Durational Video Performance
made into Live-Action Performance, 2012

Performance:
Garden of about:blank, Berlin
Slut-Walk, curated by Sylvia Sadinski, 2012

Video Filming Location: 
Abandoned Park Kranken Haus in Leipzig, Germany, which is the decaying, empty shell of The Institute of Psychology / Psychiatric Clinic in Dosen, filmed in 2012.

Filming Assistance:
Felix Von Haselberg

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Video and live action performance, made in simultaneous moment, creating a mirror effect where it seems as if the artist is interacting with herself.

This work was a expression of violence and pain in answer to an unbekown force of dominance and control.

The forces of dominance and control are the ellitism and patriachial traps of our culture which have constantly denied free expression, free bodies, free movement and free emotions.

This was a deeply emotional project and one that was exposing of a raw element of pain and truth lying behind and remaining often invisible which one can easily twist into the absurd.

The work relates to body image - the pressure onto women to perform, to be sculpted - the pressure onto each of us to be slaves in a system, forcing each of us into self-neglect, contortion and self-harm.

Please note the descriptions of this artwork might be triggering for some people.


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The video section of this work was recorded in private durational experience filmed in an abandoned [ex-military] building, in Leipzig, Germany, 2011 with deep thanks to Felix Von Haselberg for his support and patience.


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An abstract narrative relies on numerology and intutive energy of numbers to explore assigned actions to each number counted from one to eight.

Eight, references eternity, balance, and endless reoccurring cycles. This can be either a utopian vision or a prison.

What begins as a light game, touching into identity, self-image, playful sexual energy traverses through the psycho-somatic and soon gains intensity and direction - becoming progressively violent as the numbers escalate.

Two characters in the film represent inner voices, societal voices - one is shown, the other hidden.

The voices in the video are all spoken by the female voice - which relates to the unconscious nature of the patriachial and collonial storyline being channelled through the female psyche - self mutilating.

Inspired largely by aktionist art, Gunter Bruss, Paul Mc Carthy, infatuated with his ability of a critical analyst of the mass media and consumer-driven society - its hypocrisy, double standards and repression.

Eight was presented not as stand alone video art, but as synchronised live art, in order to double the idenity layers.

As transgressive performance art, the movements of this piece include psychosexual events hidden within domestic materials and activities.

In the face of social convention, Eight tests the emotional limits - disgust, shame - of both artist and viewer.


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THE FILMING LOCATION:
ABANDONED PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL


Actions in video were filmed at the abandoned Park Kranken Haus in Leipzig, Germany, which is the decaying, empty shell of The Institute of Psychology / Psychiatric Clinic in Dosen.

This hospital was active in the late 1890’s & 1900’s, During the DDR and second world war, being overtaken and used as a location to design poisons and much worst, later repurposed as a rehabilitation centre after the war, and then was abandoned in the 1990’s.

There were uncountable, incredibly traumatic events that occurred on these grounds, under the name of “psychological health”. The names of the perpetrators who were operating as doctors and researchers will not be mentioned here in this website.

All that needs to be a said is there was an incredibly high mortality rate in these hospitals due to their extremely limited perspective on what psychological health was, what ideal human capacity and evolution was, and their inhumane methods at researching and ‘treating’ their patients - over 800 small children and an unknown amount of adults died in this location during the 1900’s. The highest mortality rate was for babies and women and of course this was racially charged.

While filming the entire video I felt tense and not at ease at this location. The location here was more than spooky or eerie. It was dense, heavy energy and active or unsettled. I did not enjoy my time in this location filming this video and once we shot enough for the video we never went back or spoke of this location or filming day again. It was not intentional or agreed upon, it was more like we both just wanted to forget that we went here and that we were ever in contact with this space.

The building itself had been left with many interiors of the original hospital still intact, the bathroom and underground levels and upper levels felt the most uneasy. We filmed in the main hall at ground level only.

It was only 10 years after making this work that I realise what I was doing with this entire piece of video. Why I was drawn to such a location of psychic and physical violence?

By re-performing with it again in Berlin live it became for a women’s rights solidary show, it became so multilayered, blending multiple generations and becoming too twisted for myself to untangle.

This art piece really was an expression of complexity, multi-meaning, deep time, trauma, violence, psychic torture, death, and the great wounds of the land and of our age.

I came to this location by “accident” or chance, to learn from it, to see it, to feel it and to be seen by it, to have my inner psychic violence seen and held in this space.

I was searching for systems to understand and this is where I was led… To a location of great trauma at the hands of defunct power.

I pray that the many souls of those who passed through this location have found freedom.


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