Madame X – Eine absolute Herrscherin & Doppelgänger & Doppelgänger Redux

Fri 13.10.
19:30

Cinema

Arsenal 1

Madame X – Eine absolute Herrscherin

Impersonation: MADAME X does not represent anything, neither the power nor the powerlessness of the woman/women; instead, the film simulates: it works with signs that feign power, that parodically allude to a scenario that belongs more to simulation (pretense, pretext, appearance, deception) than to reality. A game/film, then, that shows the possibilities of fantastic actions in the seclusion of a limited whole (junk), staged according to specific rules and accompanied by the knowledge of the difference from ordinary life, far from any fighting instruction for a feminist everyday life. (Monika Treut)

Doppelgänger

Impersonation: DOPPELGÄNGER is one of earliest works by video art pioneer Eliane Schemilt. It is a performance video, in which the artist stands in front of a mirror and puts on makeup with extreme precision and in the manner of a chore. But the matter on her face becomes excessive and opaque, and the face appears like a mask. The artist picks up a black drawing pen and begins to trace her own facial lines over the reflection of her masked-out face in the mirror. The lines of the hair on her forehead, the contour of the nose, her lips, eyebrows, and her jawlines cut through the whiteness of the makeup-mask. The artist’s reflection, on which the lines are being drawn and the lines on the mirror go off-sync the moment she makes even the slightest move or takes a deep breath. Then, the artist tries to fit her image into the lines on the mirror. The line-face and the mask-face jostle to fit in. The audio track is a mix of random radio talks on schizophrenia.

Doppelgänger Redux

Impersonation: In 2016, it was found again and Elaine Shemilt made a new performance piece around that - DOPPELGÄNGER REDUX. She reenacts the number of tracing facial features on the mirrored image and juxtaposes that with old images from her own archive as well as with footage of the earlier video, where she was almost four decades younger. Seen together, DOPPELGÄNGER and DOPPELGÄNGER REDUX, make for an intricate yet fragile connection between the simultaneity of the video technology and the transiency of the body – as stitched with the thread of feminist discourse on body culture.