On Friday 13th Jan, 2012 Nicola will perform two rituals for the empowerment of women - recoding death of fantasy and beauty. Features - projections, performance, install of red, yellow, blue hand and face sensor stickers, dangdut, hair whipping.
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“The Only Good Woman Is A Dead Woman” is a quote from Slavoj Zizek’s A Pervert’s Guide to Cinema he stipulates in cinema (a medium that now guides our fantasies) the death of the female (fantasy) keeps the male libidinal economy going onward and upward. I want to steal the power of death of fantasy from men and give it back to women. There are hands and face sillhouettes around the room where audience can place their hands or face, I ask them to confide in me, just by placing their thoughts into the ground or the glass – thoughts of a life or death of a fantasy. I do this by using projections and music. I will transform cinema into a sexy musical dominion where male and female fantasies live forever. Look at the footage, live the dangdut. In one of the shopfront windows I write all my ‘shut down’ lines on to dry rice paper over the projection. I project the aesthetic themes of Life, Death, Fantasy > Light, Dark, Fire and then take the dry rice paper circles, wet them stick them over my body. All of this aurally supported by a mix of Kylie Minogue's "Confide in Me" with Dangdut and Tecno Brega music. Re: Kylie, she took us the right way from hollywood (well Neighbours to being a sexy dancer, no fucker is gonna kill her now or make her move to Brisbane so Scott and the rest of the Neighbours can continue their shit!!!)
Then towards beauty and the water, that transformed the rice paper circles I add glitter, dip my hair in it and invite the audience to do the same as we "Whip my hair back and forth." Men can’t kill a woman’s fantasies, they live on and are transferred.
I present the sexual fantasy of dangdut, a provocative dance slightly incongruous to the region's Islamic values, but one which is trance like, so never dies.. we get in a hair whipping trance..
According to
The Culture Code by Clotaire Rapaille, (Western culture’s) cultural code for beauty is ‘men’s salvation’ – do we really work hard to impress each other with our beauty to prove our ability to save men? There is all this woman on woman anger, that extends to racial ie. white women v asian women – white women think men want asian women more and asian women think men want white women more. BUT LADY GAGA IS BEAUTIFUL AND DOESN’T SAVE MEN. In the pursuit of alien beauty, we find an alternative, feasting from the glitter I laid out earlier on in the night, everyone has glitter on our hands and faces and projected are the phrases “I only wear free trade and recycled clothing,” “My make up is not tested on animals,” and "Aliens can overthrow the state" – we transform to beautiful caring aliens.
Video:
Window and Floor Install Plans:
Below are some video stills from projection and performance. Performance stills by KT Spit:
