Performance of Desire
single channel video, running time 04:12, 2007.
With a nod to Busby Berkeley’s lavish musicals and the US fascination with military reenactment, Performance of Desire explores the isolation and obsession required in the search for perfection and the boundaries of control and free will.
Relinquishing individuality to become part of the choreography of war, cadets perform a silent drill that demands precision and exact synchronization. Paired with inverted images of synchronized swimmers matched in their slow motion movements, the piece suggests new relationships between beauty and strength, as well as age, desire, and power.
Texts:
 | Kasper, Chris: "Infinitu et Contini: Repeated Histories, Reinvented Resistances." Art Papers, March/April 2008. |
| Diack, Heather: "Sign Language as Politics." Afterimage, Vol. 35, No. 5., March/April 2008. |
Video excerpt: