iLook – TRT 21:43 mins
My work explores the many facets of identity, technology, communication, and language. Through time based media, performances, and installations; I investigate the intersection of identity, technology and pop culture. In my work I fuse fictional and autobiographical narratives to evoke the fluid interchange of perception and imagination. Video and sound are important drivers in my creations. As a performer I use video as a shape shifting vehicle for creating personas and characters. Humor is also a recurring element in my work, as is gender play and feminism. I use language and poetry to explore signification in communication, and it’s relationship to the voice. Creative writing fuels my work in both process and content, and often plays a major role in the conceptualization of my projects.
“iLook” explores notions of looking and psycho-feedback through a series of digital collages. In his book “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man”, Marshall McLuhan suggests, like the mythic Narcissus, we’ve become numbed by our technology. The replicated image takes on its own signification reminding us of the fabrication of identity and our ability to digitally alter our
appearance and personal narrative. We live in the age of the repeated and fragmented. We gaze at our Other selves with the same starry eyed hypnosis Narcissus experienced when consumed by his own reflection. This Other has a life of its own. Its own identity, function and destiny.
“iLook” moves slowly allowing the viewer to look, linger and watch. The image of the artist distorts and multiplies creating an imaginative space where copies of copies mingle and coexist. Image fragments multiply and join creating new forms and curiosities. Imagery shifts from sensual to abject, evoking the scopophilic, and allowing the viewer to luxuriate in the act of looking with the added dimension of being conscious of their voyeurism.
Colleen Keough is an Intermedia / Trans-Disciplinary artist working in lens and time based media, performance, installation, and hybrid art forms. Keough’s research explores the intersection of pop culture, identity, myth and technology. Her works investigate the voice, and fragmentation of identity and language, through electronic modes of imaging, communication, and identification. Her works have examined subject matter such as bioelectric communication, archetypal embodiments of the female voice, media as a vehicle of vocal disembodiment, classical mythos and technological phenomena, and natural and sonic phenomena. Her works have been included in national and international exhibitions and festivals including the Athens Video Art Festival, Athens, Greece / Galway International Arts Festival, Galway Ireland / Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY / Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space Prague, Czech Republic / Yan Gerber International Arts Festival Weichang County, China / Athens International Film and Video Festival, Athens, OH / Glitch Festival, Dublin, Ireland / Loop Video Art Festival, Barcelona, Spain / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA / Institute for Humanities Research, Arizona State University, and the E-Poetry Festival, London / Kingston Upon the Thames, UK. Keough earned a Studio Art Diploma & Fifth Year Certificate from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, a BA in Interdisciplinary Arts form DePaul University, Chicago, IL, and an MFA in Electronic Integrated Arts from NYSCC Alfred University.
17 Days Video Series 