cibachrome photographs
multi-channel video installation
2000
Becoming series explores the act of constructing and playing a character (through pose and gesture) in an attempt to define one’s self. For it, I chose the seminal films viewed in my past, literally projected scenes and stood in for different characters. These scenes represent a collection of images and sounds through which I learned to define and interpret myself. Imitating and taking on characters’ physical and psychological attributes created a tangible hybrid, both audience and performer, adoring fan and movie star. Enacting certain scenes exposed the gestures implemented in projecting my own image. Once identified, these gestures were manipulated. I could change my self, become another man, a woman, a psychotic, a victim, a monster. Psychological states, gender, and sexual orientation could be altered by simply changing the movie. Becoming represents an effort to employ a more malleable form of self.