Video performance. 2019.
This work is part of the permanent collection of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal since June of 2021.
Dating for Export, Selected still.
A queer user performs a selfie session in front of an iPhone. The camera frames different body fragments, quoting the standardized gestures with which users showcase themselves in the profiles of dating apps. From art history to porn and fashion advertising, various imagery unfolds in the physical performance, exploring the construction of desire and racial fetishization in queer digital embodiment. A soundscape made out of internet and telecom noise, real-life chats and electronic samples play along with the images. In the live version, both visual and sound elements are mixed and performed in real-time.
Through different iterations, the piece has been presented in the pop-up show “Shall a selfie bury you”, for the International conference “Fear & Loathing of the Online Self”, in Rome, Italy in May of 2018; as an audiovisual performance in Ripa Festival, Montreal in April 2017; and as a single-channel video piece in “In præsentia/in absentia” special program of Momenta Biennale and FIFA, Montreal in March and “Inout Festival” in Gdansk, Poland in April, both in 2019.
The piece was exhibited in May 2021 at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal”, as part of the show “Ne dis à personne ce qu’on fait quand je me sens seul.e”, curated by Eunice Belidor. The works included in the exhibition were acquired for the permanent collection of the museum.
Dating for Export, 2017-2019 presented at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal from April 28 to May 30, 2021 in the exhibition Don’t Tell Anybody What We Do When I Get Lonely. Collection Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal © Francisco González-Rosas. Photo: Richard-Max Tremblay