catherinesiller_0c48d3
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The Reveal
Interactive, multimedia performance45 minutes2022 Three dancers portray a single protagonist who feels boxed in by gender norms – they wrestle with the pink and blue detritus of a gender reveal party, swim in the sea of gender identity, and with support from the audience, come out as genderqueer. The Reveal ultimately uses gender as a lens…
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Like Dreaming
Multimedia performance11:002017 Is Instagram a dreamy opportunity to reinvent ourselves or a nightmarish reminder that we are never enough? This solo performance remixes poses, imagery, and sound from Instagram ads in a dreamy exploration of our relationship to social media. A webcam captures video of the performer’s upper body as she performs – entirely with…
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#buynow
Interactive video installationDimensions variable2019 Immerse yourself in the luxurious world of an Instagram influencer as you fly through opulent baroque palaces and dissolve in glitchy, industrial-chic landscapes. This interactive installation combines real-time video of viewers with beautiful but uncanny advertising imagery. Traces of our colonialist and capitalist history shimmer just beneath the surface of these…
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Sugar and Spice
Seven-screen video installationApprox: 80ft x 24ft0:302019 “Sugar and Spice” playfully critiques our expectations for young girls. This stop motion animation is inspired by the 19th century rhyme “What Are Little Boys Made Of?”. Countless contemporary videos of this outdated rhyme continue to reinforce that little girls are made of “sugar and spice and everything nice.”…
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Are You Buying?
Multimedia performance30 minutes2018 A storefront mannequin searches for beauty, traveling back in time through fashion and beauty advertisements from the 1920s to today. At first, she’s thrilled to reinvent herself. But soon she’s caught in a loop of desire and dissatisfaction, chasing an ever-shifting beauty ideal. This solo performance was designed specifically for storefront windows.…
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Are You Buying? (Interactive)
Interactive, durational performanceInstallation dimension 48” x 48”2018 A living statue performs gestures of femininity from the 1920s to today. Choose the decade you want to explore by pushing oversize buttons on the platform. Each button skips the music forward or backward in time. The living statue responds to the music – a mashup of ads…
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Fish Gape / Duck Face
Installation size variableAnimated GIFs projected on soft pastel, paper, and MDF2017 This installation explores the tension between the unsightly private and the polished public actions of performing femininity, and the ways in which our phones facilitate constant bodily self-policing. A series of animated GIFs are projected onto pastel drawings on mock iPhone 8s. The drawings…
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Boiling Point
Animation3:482016 “Boiling Point” is an animated short about gender expectations, body image, and the media. It began as a series of pastel sketches inspired by the models in fashion and beauty magazines. These sketches were reworked using actions described in the magazines’ articles: plucking, scrubbing, erasing, etc. The drawings were then animated using a combination…
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Make Me
Seven-screen video installationApprox: 80ft x 24ft0:302016 “Make Me” explores our relationship with makeup: how it makes us feel more attractive and confident, but also how we might start to feel dependent on it for this self esteem boost. This animated short reminds us that makeup impacts how we see ourselves and others, and invites us…
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Voiced / Unvoiced
Multimedia performance12:002013 A body pushes against the screen and through lines of text, only to collapse back into a sea of words. Inspired by the writing of Judith Butler, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, and Brian Rotman, this solo performance explores how language shapes our understanding of gender and our perception of our bodies. Does…