Photography Film Video
Aisling O’Brien
Fair is Foul
Drawing on Antonin Artaud’s ideas around theatre of cruelty and Laura Mulvey’s concept described as a heterosexual, masculine gaze, my video art centres around merging these two elements and turning the gaze back on to the viewer. Ideas and concepts surrounding the monstrous feminine and perspective being objective play a large role in my video art.
My art plays on what makes a woman monstrous in the viewers eyes, I play with the question “Can simple tasks be made eerie with a subtle shift in the woman’s body language?” or “If the woman is looking back at the viewer, does the viewer feel guilty about watching the woman?”
The women in my art piece “Fair is Foul” embody and mirror my own version of the Three Witches from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Within the famous play the three wayward witches represent women lead astray, each of the three women representing a different element of evil, darkness, chaos, and conflict, with a warped sense of morality, their presence alone communicates impending doom.