Red vs. Red
WHAT: Face-off
WHEN: Opening Wednesday August 1, 6pm Thur August 2-18Â (Thur-Sat 11-5)
WHERE: DON’T LOOK Experimental New Media Gallery 419 New Canterbury Rd (Near Marrickville Rd), Dulwich Hill Sydney, NSW
WHO: Red vs. Red
CONTACT: Greg Shapley – Ph: 0401 152 434 EMAIL: dontlookgallery@gmail.com WEB: myspace.com/dontlookgallery
FACE-OFF By Red vs. Red
We are all lepers….
As the leper was separated through material and social means, so are we through the performance of new media. We lose parts of our body through these interfaces. Communication is facilitated but it is also distorted, disrupted and finally, thwarted. The daily interaction through screens means that we communicate with each other, yet remain separate, invisible and masked.
Through the use of video projections, duct-tape and performance Red vs. Red will explore the idea of virtual dislocation. Invoking a primitivist physicality they will go through the very real process of wrapping themselves together with duct tape. The audience will be cut off from this sensory experience shared by the performers by the digital paraphernalia that, paradoxically, allows them to eventually experience it.
Roland Barthes referred to the process of taking a photo as a type of death – the moment frozen in the mausoleum that is the medium – fossilised for eternity, the point of immortalisation also signifying a loss of mortality. If this is so, then the vast array of digital media whizzing round the globe is an incessant slaughterhouse, turning every previous moment into an array of fine cuts for easy consumption.
Face-off uses digital media to critique its shortcomings. These ‘fine cuts’ will be on display along with other fossilised remnants of the ritual (including the duct tape ‘shell’ and life size photos). By presenting the ‘dead’ performance to a ‘live’ audience, this work will also explore the oppositional aspects of contemporary communication, of ‘my body versus your body’.