Access All Arias 2012 Goldsmiths MFA Show

In a custom-built amphitheatre I serenade audience members one on one. I sing an operatic aria whilst filming the viewer with a video camera. The footage is both recorded and live streamed to a TV monitor next to me. I use the camera to highlight elements of the structure we are in, zooming in on the grain of the wood and tracing its form.

By serenading a camera, not breaking eye contact with it in the presence of another, I am confronting the way in which we lead our lives besotted and physically engrossed by the disseminating possibilities of technological devices.

I performed for a total of 17 hours during the 5 days of the exhibition. When I was not performing, I played back the footage I had generated during the performances on the monitor within the structure.

With thanks to Diana Policarpo for documentation.

 Diva’s Dress

I commissioned Umi Lovecraft Baden-Powell to replicate the dress Cynthia Hawkins (Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez) wears in the film Diva (Jean-Jaques Beineix, 1981). The film’s storyline is based around the morality of recording Hawkins’ live operatic performances and is significant in my artistic practice.

 

All content copyright © Hannah Catherine Jones 2013