Alex Martinis Roe
Videos by artist:
Statement
Since 2005, creating performance based video installations for site-specific exhibition has been a form of research into the politics of gender and sexuality in art contexts. I have attempted to self-reflexively activate most factors of the work’s production as content. This strategy is part of a broader interrogation of ‘the feminine body’ as it is presented via rhetorical modes of ‘representation’. The need for this political work comes from a consciousness of the very real potential for artistic performance to impact upon the subjectivities (and particularly gender identification and desiring patterns) of audiences and performers.
All these projects have in some way used my own body as the material of communication. In some instances, video and live performance have been used interchangeably as a comment on the lack of distinction between our image and our ‘material’ being. That our sense of self is made up of ‘representations’ produced by others and ourselves is evermore apparent. I have also used myself so as to illuminate power relationships between the artist, audience, and the subject/object of art. I intend to bring a consciousness to the viewing practices of my audiences. Often, I have glamorised images of myself so that when a gallery visitor looks at an image that elicits desire, they experience a simultaneous consciousness that the artist is authoring that reaction: the image is no longer passive.