Video
Allison Flom
http://allisonflomart.com
Allison Flom, born in 1992, now resides in Lawrence, Kansas where she received a BFA in Visual Arts (Expanded Media concentration) as well as a minor in Art History from the University of Kansas. Her work is largely based in digital mediums such as video art and digital images, often incorporating elements of performance, Internet and mass media presented in projected installations.
Allison often features herself, utilizing her female body as a powerful symbol. Drawing from an extensive background in rigorous performing arts, like ballet and gymnastics, she tests the limits of her physical body in digital installation spaces. Her interests in pin-up and commercial culture become apparent through the colorful and chaotic montage aesthetic seen in the digital aspects of these works
Flom’s concepts center around the exploration of the female body and sexuality in relation to technology; calling into question perspectives of mass media as uses by entities of the public and the individual. She enjoys implicating her audience by charging the space between herself and them paralleling the space between digital and human.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
I am an artist who creates conceptual performance art and video art utilizing my body and various mass media sources. I draw from an obsession with the physicality of the female body and its value as a conceptual tool in space. I have been able to expand upon my fascination with the female body by using technology to transplant my physical self into digital spaces. I utilize voyeurism and the virtual accessibility of twenty-first century bodies to explore topics of gender in relation to technology, media, and science.
My work deals with the lens society has created through progression and usage of media and technology affects women’s socioeconomic rights and is a channel that is highly underutilized by women. It is for this reason that I choose to operate within these systems, attempting to raise female representation in medial realms while simultaneously raising a critique against media. By doing this I examine both freedoms and restrictions that have resulted from the growth of digital media and science to women.
I compile footage; including recordings of performance and imagery taken from external media and Internet sources when creating my video artworks. My style when editing said footage together that is drawn from media itself; a barrage of colorized moving images grabs at the attention of the viewer while at the same time refusing to gratify with the narrative plot structure historically promised my the film industry. The tension between tantalizing imagery and my decisive anonymity towards the audience creates an atmosphere of curiosity between them and I. This volatile negative space elicits physical reactions of discomfort and provokes the psyche of the audience.
Video title
CENSORSTRIP, 2015, 3 : 32
Censorstrip is a video installation which confronts the viewer in a chaotic montage of visuals and sounds. The projections and soundscape in space challenge hegemonic concepts of gender in modern society, specifically public intolerance and scrutiny of female sexuality through media. Two videos are projected in tandem displaying the violent and sexually charged act of wrapping my body in duct tape and ripping it off simultaneously. I employed green screen techniques to create the disappearance and reappearance of my form according to the placement of the tape. Through layering provocative digital images in the background of my performance, I address mediated restrictions on female bodies. By wrapping myself in tape I embody these constraints and demand space in gendered technocracy.
