Description

Single channle video/sculpture Installation. Two way functional washroom, (size variable), with mirror (size variable), light bulbs, wash basin/running water, lipsticks, face powder, ribbons, bindis, (the mark hindu women wear on the forehead), comb, tissues and other articles of adornment. 3 minute loop with sound.

You look at your reflection in the mirror and are free to use any of the make-up items in the room. Suddenly you are disturbed by a plaintive music emanating from the mirror and your reflection in the mirror is replaced by other images. The faces in the mirror replace your face at exactly the same distance from you as your own reflection. Thus your eyes do not re-focus to engage the intrusive images. The images tell stories / open narratives. One possible reading suggests a dysfunctional family that comes together in another sort of reflection - the reflection on a photo-sensitive film: a family photograph.

All through you continue to see a ghost of your own reflection in the mirror. You have to continuously negotiate your position to catch glimpses of the narrative happening on the margins of the frame.
The gaze cast on our own image in the mirror is very different from the gaze we cast on the ‘other’. This installation displaces images to ‘sound’ these altered states.

Powder room Perfromance
At various intervals the video projection is stopped to be replaced by a performance interlude. Now the viewer’s reflection in the mirror is replaced by real people in privateand intimate engagement with the self.
Some examples

• A woman looking into the viewer’s eyes (the mirror) applying lipstick or mascara etc...
• A man or woman examining his/her body (for breast cancer!).
• A transsexual looking at the viewer with animated expression.
• A man/woman dressing-up or undressing or engaged in auto/eroticism.

The performance incorporated as part of the video installation works through a critical reflection on how we respond when gazed back by real people alternating with videoed people who cannot return your gaze.

The viewers relection is replaced by the head of a woman looking away (Magaritte like). She begins to undress. Is the viewer now a voyeur? The woman turns around to question him/mirror.

The Powder Room – an interactive installation
A set of two-way mirrors is installed in a wall dividing two existing or constructed washrooms/toilets, preferably one ’Gents’ and one ‘Ladies’.

At intervals of 10 to 15 seconds intensity of light alternates in a localised area, with first one washroom getting brighter and then the other. Alternately the viewers reflection disappears to show the view through the dividing wall into other wash rooms.

If no face/person is present on the other side – you see the male or female signage through the mirror.
There are various options for the location of the light source depending on the specific rooms available.
The gaze cast on our own image in the mirror is very different from the gaze we cast on the ‘other’. This installation displaces images to ‘sound’ these altered states.