In the three-part series "Nine Years Later", I revisit video performances I created nearly a decade earlier to songs by the British pop band The Smiths. I betray the apparent effortlessness of my original single-take performances by setting them against the numerous, often self-conscious and painstaking attempts they took to create. With inter-titles, voice-over and repeat-edits, I calibrate my performances according to the outdated video technology I used to record them. In these reappraisals, the body, in its accommodation of the perpetual evolution and obsolescence of technology, is ultimately represented as an enjoying substance. Whether portraying a vindictive martyr in Bigmouth Strikes Again, a suicidal loner in Panic, or a comatose drag queen in Girlfriend In A Coma, I bring the misanthropy, irony and malice in lead-singer Morrissey’s lyrics to life.
Daniel Chapman, a web developer, and I broke ground on the site June 8, 2015. My desire was to create a comprehensive space to house my art and corresponding activities, which include writing, teaching, screenings and my work in the field of contemporary psychoanalysis. Images of works from, and installation views of, exhibitions in most cases represent a portion of what was shown. The site is updated on an ongoing basis.
Site technical specifications are as follows: for back-end development, we used Rails with a Postgres database with rspec for testing; AWS and Heroku for hosting of the files and site. For the front-end work, traditional javascript and jQuery work, with Sass for design.
I’m grateful to Daniel for his expertise, creativity and commitment. For more information about Daniel and his work, click here.