[ISEA2013] Artist Statement: Sam Fox – TechnoCulturalBodySuit series 1-3 (2013)

Artist Statement

Paper Mache, crystalline minerals, performance, video, latex bodysuit, vacuum cleaner, vegetable matter, performance, silicon, tumour casts, electronics, performance.

“I died as violence and knew conceit
I died as freedom and enjoyed great pleasure
I fought for my body, and it died”                                                                                                          _Sufi Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

TechnoCulturalBodySuits is a triptych of ethics, articulating different orientations toward the membrane; to be violated, endured & indulged and defended. Each TCBSuit references the violence of biological progression with the centrality of the human body in regards to cultural conceit and social-political mortality. A progressive polemic emerges from the competing & contradictory ethics while I argue for the dissolution of oppressive borders, while paradoxically supporting the same borders/barriers. The titles refer to the poem by Sufi Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, translating into English as ‘I Died as Mineral’.

  • Sam Fox is a performance maker who draws on his dance, visual theatre and writing practice to create hybrid works that entail finely crafted challenges for audiences. Sam is committed to a dual practice of facilitating creative engagement and collaborative projects in community alongside his original contemporary performance practice. Sam is the founder/director of Hydra Poesis which explores critical exchange and inquiry with audiences and is a BA Dance Graduate of WAAPA (2003). While building his own performance practice Sam has developed as a facilitator and producer of multi-arts, community based projects, festivals and research programs.

Developed with funds from the Department of Culture and the Arts Western Australia.