Sarah Buckius
USA 2019 // 1.10 min. // HD 16:9
In the age of Trump presidency, who has agency over, and ownership of, women’s bodies? As a mother of daughters in the age of Trump, who has agency over their bodies, their developing “selves”?
This work weaves digital video clippings of my own body into a tapestry of movement, calling to mind ornamental and decorative arts traditionally deemed “women’s work” such as sewing, knitting, and weaving. The movement is juxtaposed with the jarring sound collage of Trump’s words.
Similar to ornamental and decorative patterns, they repeat and juxtapose basal elements to form larger motifs. As moving collages, they convey the notion that patterns can be malleable, restless, mutable, transformable, etc, The idiosyncrasies in the movements contrast with the common conception of consistency and regularity associated with the “digital” and reveal the “human” hand in the process of construction (human body movements). Dragging and dropping physical body parts creates the repetitious aesthetic only possible with digital technology, thus suggesting the multifaceted (sometimes artificially replicated) identities we can assume in today’s digital world and in the age of Trump.
CV
Sarah Buckius (b. 1979 in Urbana, IL) is an artist and educator who lives in Northern California. Her creative work incorporates digital video, photography, and performance and has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She was an Assistant Professor of Photography at Michigan State University from 2010-2011 and has worked as an adjunct instructor of digital art, photography, time-based media, and art appreciation at Augusta State University (2012), the University of Michigan (2007-2010), and Eastern Michigan University (2009-2010). Notable video screenings include The State of The Art: Accademia di Romania in Roma (Rome, Italy), InsideOut Step2: White Box Museum of Art (Beijing, China), SIMULTAN #6: Past Continuous, Future Perfect | (Timisoara, Romania), Visions in the Nunnery: Nunnery Gallery (London, UK), EXiS 2010 International Film & Video Festival (Seoul, Korea), Images Contre Nature 2011: P’Silo International Experimental Video Festival (Marseille, France), and AC Institute Rotating Video Project (New York, NY).