Steak, 2008
Translucence, 2008
Translucence, 2010
Delta of Venus, 2010
Composition (Orange), 2010
About Me
- gina
- performance and video artist living in footscray. also enjoy drinking, eating and sleeping.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
past performance works
Have finished uni for the year and am planning some new performance works that I'll be making over the summer. For now, here's some photographs of past work made during 2008 and 2010.
Steak, 2008
Translucence, 2008
Translucence, 2010
Delta of Venus, 2010
Composition (Orange), 2010
Steak, 2008
Translucence, 2008
Translucence, 2010
Delta of Venus, 2010
Composition (Orange), 2010
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
(dis-)array at light projects
Upcoming exhibition featuring the ACAB artist’s book.
The book was created at Monash University during (dis-)array, a series of transdisciplinary workshops that focus on making practices public through through the form of the artist’s book.
Opening drinks: 6-8pm, Friday 30 September 2011
The exhibition may be viewed:
Friday, Saturday & Sunday, 12-5pm, or by appointment
176 High Street, Northcote
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
end zone (always do the bad thing) a performance by blaine cooper
Went to a really great performance at Blindside last week:
End Zone (Always Do the Bad Thang) is a new performance work by Melbourne-based video and installation artist Blaine Cooper, in collaboration with guitarist Nicholas Lam. Get set to see the artist running (via treadmill) from a wall of cinematic explosions, with wailing blasts of electric guitar highlighting the contrast between the always energetic, indestructible screen hero and the reality of a sweaty mess trying desperately to escape imminent destruction.
The performance went over a two hour period with Blaine Cooper running on the treadmill and Nicholas Lam playing more or less continual awesome classic guitar solo. As it went on the room (gallery 2) became heavier and drippier with airborne sweat. There was Guns n Roses, Kiss and cheap beer....it was the ultimate cheesy manly man action movie experience. Blaine was dressed (as most men in action movies) in leather shoes, trousers and a white singlet, clothing at odds with the act of running on a treadmill. As it went on the details became more and more interesting.....droplets of sweat beaded and dripped in his eyes and drenched his clothing; the heat emanating from his body doused the room....I felt like I could smell the leather of his shoes with the heat of continual movement. By the end he looked grey and exhausted.
End Zone (Always Do the Bad Thang) is a new performance work by Melbourne-based video and installation artist Blaine Cooper, in collaboration with guitarist Nicholas Lam. Get set to see the artist running (via treadmill) from a wall of cinematic explosions, with wailing blasts of electric guitar highlighting the contrast between the always energetic, indestructible screen hero and the reality of a sweaty mess trying desperately to escape imminent destruction.
The performance went over a two hour period with Blaine Cooper running on the treadmill and Nicholas Lam playing more or less continual awesome classic guitar solo. As it went on the room (gallery 2) became heavier and drippier with airborne sweat. There was Guns n Roses, Kiss and cheap beer....it was the ultimate cheesy manly man action movie experience. Blaine was dressed (as most men in action movies) in leather shoes, trousers and a white singlet, clothing at odds with the act of running on a treadmill. As it went on the details became more and more interesting.....droplets of sweat beaded and dripped in his eyes and drenched his clothing; the heat emanating from his body doused the room....I felt like I could smell the leather of his shoes with the heat of continual movement. By the end he looked grey and exhausted.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
nausea's reprieve winter carnival at topshed
Installation at Topshed, a warehouse in Fitzroy. The work was part of a night of theater, music and drinking with sounds by Pikelet and Rat vs Possum; video installation by us and Projector Obscura; and performances by the cast of Nausea’s Reprieve an absurdest comedy by James Khoo.
There was also vodka punch. Funsies!
There was also vodka punch. Funsies!
Friday, August 12, 2011
unmeasuring time : blindside
I've recently been involved in this exhibition, Unmeasuring Time, at Blindside Gallery.
Curated by Zinzi Kennedy, the exhibition includes the work of three female artists; Zinzi Kennedy, myself and Bonnie Lane, with each of us engaging with duration, video and performance in different ways.
"Within screen based installations time becomes spatialized and put on display providing an opportunity for stimulating recognition by spectators of the proportion of formulaic linearity that pervades media experience demonstrating that subjectivity is itself experienced as durational. Viewers of screen-based installation are avowed with the ability to determine their own durational experiences, as they at will autonomously dictate the amount of time that is spent with each work. Video installations have the ability to generate the impression that they are perpetually taking place, even in the absence of spectators they continue, an 'ongoing object.' This perception invites viewers to enter works at any point in the cycle of projections and to explore the illuminated environment at a length of time that they judge as appropriate rather than that decision being made in totality by the artist, artwork or institution. Each artist in this exhibition deals with durational experience uniquely from directly recording a live performance to utilizing the relentlessness of continuous loops. Juxtaposing the video artworks in 'Unmeasuring Time' demonstrates differing approaches to time whilst elucidating videos ability to generate immersive temporal impulses."
-Zinzi Kennedy
I feel like it has been a really successful show. Whilst sitting the gallery over the past few weeks I've gotten some feedback about the work from people visiting the show. Some people were really positive, others disgusted, ambivalent, intrigued..... it's just nice to hear responses anyway. Setting up the show was challenging (as it always is) and by the time we got it all together I was well and truly ready for a glass of wine. Here's some photos from the setup and opening drinks....
Curated by Zinzi Kennedy, the exhibition includes the work of three female artists; Zinzi Kennedy, myself and Bonnie Lane, with each of us engaging with duration, video and performance in different ways.
"Within screen based installations time becomes spatialized and put on display providing an opportunity for stimulating recognition by spectators of the proportion of formulaic linearity that pervades media experience demonstrating that subjectivity is itself experienced as durational. Viewers of screen-based installation are avowed with the ability to determine their own durational experiences, as they at will autonomously dictate the amount of time that is spent with each work. Video installations have the ability to generate the impression that they are perpetually taking place, even in the absence of spectators they continue, an 'ongoing object.' This perception invites viewers to enter works at any point in the cycle of projections and to explore the illuminated environment at a length of time that they judge as appropriate rather than that decision being made in totality by the artist, artwork or institution. Each artist in this exhibition deals with durational experience uniquely from directly recording a live performance to utilizing the relentlessness of continuous loops. Juxtaposing the video artworks in 'Unmeasuring Time' demonstrates differing approaches to time whilst elucidating videos ability to generate immersive temporal impulses."
-Zinzi Kennedy
I feel like it has been a really successful show. Whilst sitting the gallery over the past few weeks I've gotten some feedback about the work from people visiting the show. Some people were really positive, others disgusted, ambivalent, intrigued..... it's just nice to hear responses anyway. Setting up the show was challenging (as it always is) and by the time we got it all together I was well and truly ready for a glass of wine. Here's some photos from the setup and opening drinks....
Saturday, July 30, 2011
food porn
While aimlessly flicking through yet another food blog I was reminded of a performance I went to a while back that I really enjoyed. It was a one man show at Hares & Hyenas on Johnston Street by Matt Fennell....
The songs were hilarious.....it was a tribute to all things food.....dinner parties, menus, the cult of the celebrity chef, childhood memories, recipe books, magazines and the way that sex and nourishment intermingle....
There were odes to Maggie Beer, Julia Childs, verjuice, afternoon tea, Nigella Lawson....and Sara Lee.
I'm reminded of some collages I made while in Italy in 08, an amazing place for food imagery and consumption....
"Food rules and moves the world. Food is necessity, pleasure and power."
While I have moved away from this as a sole concern in my artwork, I have been very interested in the way advertising imagery and social attitudes fetishize female relationships with food. Desire, denial, guilt and secrecy seem to often play a role, with the ultimate goal to be thin and desirable whilst feigning an insatiable, desirous attitude....
At any rate, Matt Fennell will be performing in Melbourne next week. I will certainly try to make it again for a glass o wine and some serious laughs...
The songs were hilarious.....it was a tribute to all things food.....dinner parties, menus, the cult of the celebrity chef, childhood memories, recipe books, magazines and the way that sex and nourishment intermingle....
There were odes to Maggie Beer, Julia Childs, verjuice, afternoon tea, Nigella Lawson....and Sara Lee.
I'm reminded of some collages I made while in Italy in 08, an amazing place for food imagery and consumption....
"Food rules and moves the world. Food is necessity, pleasure and power."
For a vast majority of women in the First World, food is a fetishized matter. From a young age, girls are taught via media and advertising that they should crave and desire food, as they should crave sex, but that they should ultimately deny themselves the pleasure of both. Chocolate bar commercials show women sneaking away to consume a chocolate bar in secret, much in the way one would meet for a sexual liaison. Ice-cream commercials show women sensually buried in Magnum ice-creams, (should I consume the woman as well as the ice-cream?) And in many magazines, sumptuously photographed food is featured alongside size six fashion models. Many women, to some level of extremity have a complex or uncomfortable relationship with food.
While I have moved away from this as a sole concern in my artwork, I have been very interested in the way advertising imagery and social attitudes fetishize female relationships with food. Desire, denial, guilt and secrecy seem to often play a role, with the ultimate goal to be thin and desirable whilst feigning an insatiable, desirous attitude....
At any rate, Matt Fennell will be performing in Melbourne next week. I will certainly try to make it again for a glass o wine and some serious laughs...
8.00pm, Fri 05 Aug, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
on photography : susan sontag
Just finished reading this book. I'd always read excerpts from it but never the whole thing.
It was interesting for me in that Sontag discussed to a lot of the photographers that I idolized when I began taking photographs as a teenager, such as Edward Weston and Bill Brandt. I remember I really enjoyed the physhical qualities of photography, printing, developing film, getting the exposure right, making images that were beautiful, and profound...but still spontaneous. Situating myself as some sort of heroic capturer of images. It's like there was this moment that I was chasing, in order to get some sort of romantic essence of a person. I guess emulating the masters of a medium is a way that artists often learn....
"Only with effort can the camera be forced to lie: basically it is an honest medium: so the photographer is much more likely to approach nature in a spirit of inquiry, of communion, instead of with the saucy swagger of self-dubbed 'artists.' And contemporary vision, the new life, is based on honest approach to all problems, be they morals or art." -Edward Weston
Not many would consider the camera to be 'honest' any more. The camera idealizes, reduces, fetishizes, as Sontag says, "photography has become almost as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing- which means that, like every mass art form, photography is not practiced by most people as an art- It is mainly a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power."
The photograph has the ability to make even very recent events nostalgic and of the past though. The present in a matter of hours becomes something perused on facebook as an event of the past. I looked through some of my work from when I was round 17.....
Very beautiful, very romantic. It's funny, while I don't record as profusely as back then, I think I still photograph a lot, so that I'll have something to look back on and remind me... There's still this desire to capture and idealize moments.
"A capitalist society requires a culture based on images. It needs to furnish vast amounts of entertainment in order to stimulate buying and anesthetize the injuries of class, race and sex. And it needs to gather unlimited amounts of information, the better to exploit natural resources, increase productivity, keep order, make war, give jobs to bureaucrats. The camera's twin capacities, to subjectivize reality and to objectify it, ideally serve these needs and strengthen them. Cameras define reality in the two ways essential to the workings of an advanced industrial society: as spectacle (for masses) and as an object of surveillance (for rulers). The production of images also furnishes a ruling ideology. Social change is replaced by a change in images."
-Susan Sontag, On Photography P. 178
It was interesting for me in that Sontag discussed to a lot of the photographers that I idolized when I began taking photographs as a teenager, such as Edward Weston and Bill Brandt. I remember I really enjoyed the physhical qualities of photography, printing, developing film, getting the exposure right, making images that were beautiful, and profound...but still spontaneous. Situating myself as some sort of heroic capturer of images. It's like there was this moment that I was chasing, in order to get some sort of romantic essence of a person. I guess emulating the masters of a medium is a way that artists often learn....
"Only with effort can the camera be forced to lie: basically it is an honest medium: so the photographer is much more likely to approach nature in a spirit of inquiry, of communion, instead of with the saucy swagger of self-dubbed 'artists.' And contemporary vision, the new life, is based on honest approach to all problems, be they morals or art." -Edward Weston
Not many would consider the camera to be 'honest' any more. The camera idealizes, reduces, fetishizes, as Sontag says, "photography has become almost as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing- which means that, like every mass art form, photography is not practiced by most people as an art- It is mainly a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power."
The photograph has the ability to make even very recent events nostalgic and of the past though. The present in a matter of hours becomes something perused on facebook as an event of the past. I looked through some of my work from when I was round 17.....
Very beautiful, very romantic. It's funny, while I don't record as profusely as back then, I think I still photograph a lot, so that I'll have something to look back on and remind me... There's still this desire to capture and idealize moments.
"A capitalist society requires a culture based on images. It needs to furnish vast amounts of entertainment in order to stimulate buying and anesthetize the injuries of class, race and sex. And it needs to gather unlimited amounts of information, the better to exploit natural resources, increase productivity, keep order, make war, give jobs to bureaucrats. The camera's twin capacities, to subjectivize reality and to objectify it, ideally serve these needs and strengthen them. Cameras define reality in the two ways essential to the workings of an advanced industrial society: as spectacle (for masses) and as an object of surveillance (for rulers). The production of images also furnishes a ruling ideology. Social change is replaced by a change in images."
-Susan Sontag, On Photography P. 178
Monday, June 27, 2011
SNAPSHOT 2011 opening
Some pics from the opening of Snapshot 2011 at Carbon Black Gallery, 188 High Street, Prahran.
Was a really fun night. The work is up until the 10th of July 2011, Wednesdays to Saturdays 9-5 if you wanna go check it out.
Was a really fun night. The work is up until the 10th of July 2011, Wednesdays to Saturdays 9-5 if you wanna go check it out.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
shoes!!
This is a thing I've been working on at the moment... it involves shoes submerged in water....something that has featured in a few dreams I've had.
I've been experimenting lately with a few works that show the impression and remnants of a body without one being in frame.
I've been experimenting lately with a few works that show the impression and remnants of a body without one being in frame.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
A.C.A.B installation at HEIST fundraiser
So, the artistic collective A.C.A.B consists of:
Zinzi & Gina Cuntstruct
Ben Johnson
Nickk Hertzog
We are a Melbourne based interdisciplinary art collective focused on watching tv and wandering around. This is our tumblr if you're interested: http://acabcollective.tumblr.com/
Anyway, last Saturday we did an installation at a wharehouse party in Collingwood, which was staged to raise money for an excellent, gory production of Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Zinzi & Gina Cuntstruct
Ben Johnson
Nickk Hertzog
We are a Melbourne based interdisciplinary art collective focused on watching tv and wandering around. This is our tumblr if you're interested: http://acabcollective.tumblr.com/
Anyway, last Saturday we did an installation at a wharehouse party in Collingwood, which was staged to raise money for an excellent, gory production of Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Friday, April 29, 2011
composition (red)
A performance I did last year.
Vomiting, known medically as emesis. The vomiting act has two phases. In the retching phase, the abdominal muscles undergo a few rounds of co-ordinated contractions with the diphragm and the muscles used in respiratory inspiration. In the next phase, the expulsive phase, intense pressure is formed in the stomach, brought about by enormous shifts in both the diaphragm and the abdomen. These shifts are, in essence rigorous contractions of these muscles that last for extended periods of time. The pressure is then suddenly released when the upper esophageal sphincter relaxes resulting in the expulsion of gastric contents. The relief of pressure and the release of endorphins into the bloodstream after the expulsion causes the vomiter to feel better.
'Ritual recognises the potency of disorder.'
-Mary Douglas in Purity & Danger
'It is almost as if, before being internally absorbed by the individual, food was by cooking, collectively predigested. One cannot share the food prepared by people without sharing in their nature.'
-Mary Douglas
Vomiting, known medically as emesis. The vomiting act has two phases. In the retching phase, the abdominal muscles undergo a few rounds of co-ordinated contractions with the diphragm and the muscles used in respiratory inspiration. In the next phase, the expulsive phase, intense pressure is formed in the stomach, brought about by enormous shifts in both the diaphragm and the abdomen. These shifts are, in essence rigorous contractions of these muscles that last for extended periods of time. The pressure is then suddenly released when the upper esophageal sphincter relaxes resulting in the expulsion of gastric contents. The relief of pressure and the release of endorphins into the bloodstream after the expulsion causes the vomiter to feel better.
'Ritual recognises the potency of disorder.'
-Mary Douglas in Purity & Danger
'It is almost as if, before being internally absorbed by the individual, food was by cooking, collectively predigested. One cannot share the food prepared by people without sharing in their nature.'
-Mary Douglas
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