My research focuses on the constructed nature and instability of gender and investigates how differing masculine identities are expressed through clothing gesture and voice signifiers. Meanings are generated from socially agreed principles of difference through repeatedly being performed , and I have been exploring the ways that individuals and groups express their identities by endorsing, exploiting or subverting cultural norms. My ideas are presented either through audio visual installations or within edited video performances .
As social engagement with male groupings is at the core of my practice, I create project based work that responds to specific sites or social groupings and their contexts. Recent video works have been based on edited interviews with hobbyists and members of niche groups. The constructed nature of the final edit in terms of both the audio and visual choices I make reflects the artifice and repetiton of hegemonic masculinity .
In choreographed performances, I use visual and verbal signifiers from popular cultural contexts such as music, theatre and dance to situate the male body as a site of performance, and I conflate apparently disparate art-historical and cultural signifiers that share a common theme.
Both methodologies demonstrate the way that individuals and groups create and perceive ‘otherness’ and these alterntive expressions of masculinity are evident within the hybridity of the costumes or the audio interviews. I am conscious that the variety of edits available to me, and the manner in which the videos, costumes and props are installed pose a variety of possible artistic outcomes.
Sharon McElroy