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Define
Me @ D.A.C. Gallery 2007 |
9
hour performance |
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"Define
Me" features the artist getting a tattoo on his
stomach. This tattoo comprises a series of identification
numbers and letters which start at his belly button and
spiral clockwise out to cover his belly. The characters
are in sequence, but not separated by punctuation, starting
with his birth date and proceeding through the various
identifiers that he accumulated in his life so far, including:
Irish social security number, Irish passport number,
Irish driving license, US alien registration number,
US social security number,US naturalization number, US
passport number, US driving license and more.
This is an ongoing project whereby the artist will add characters as they are
allocated to him throughout his life. The final set of numbers and letters at
his death, will define the life he has lead and reflect the various legal quantifications
that have been imposed upon him in his lifetime. |
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| The
artist recorded his tattooing with a macro camera
and broadcast this extreme close up video of each numeral
as it appears in his flesh, to a large screen nearby.
Onlookers were able to watch the tattooing or choose
to watch the screen with a very intimate level of detail.
They saw the numbers draw blood and irritate the
flesh; watched the realization of this spiral out from
the navel, the original source of life and caregiving
and the birthplace of identity (severing of the umbilical
cord produces separation and is the birth of identity). |
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| In
order to live in the modern world one's status needs
to be determined and defined; hence the need to identify
everyone. Our various numerical identities give us power
(such as the right to live in a certain geographical
area or the right to operate a type of vehicle, while
also defining us as a certain "type", which
is often exclusive of other possibilities of type. To
have a certain passport excludes you from having another
certain one etc. The defining of people according to
the many unrelated criteria for identification, limits
their ability to be. Categorizing is a form of quantification,
but also a form of quantizing, whereby idiosyncratic
smaller details are omitted to generate a "bigger
picture". It is the details that really define us,
that make personality, that make each of us unique. These
details exist outside of the numbers. |
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Define Me, the artist is taking control of the numbers
that he had no part in creating. He is taking them and
really making them part of him; he is possessing them,
owning them and turning them into something bigger. Unrelated
numbers from unrelated systems are amassed into a living,
evolving whole that is greater than its parts, that perhaps
goes some way further in defining him than was ever envisioned
by the bureaucrats that instigated the systems. The numbers
become flesh, become living and fade with age, and suffer
deterioration from abrasion and wounding, as does the
artist. The spiral will grow, gaining new life each time
the artist is redefined by some system. The absurdity
and randomness of the numbers is brought to the fore
by the lack of punctuation; any number can start anywhere
and end anywhere. |
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Supported
by video projections, and a live camera projection, the
artist was tattooed with the 228 characters accrued
so far, over a period of 9 hours.
Tattoo artist: Nala Smith
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