Christine Ellison

  • Feature:
      Monday June 4th
  • Project:
      Prêt-à-Médiatiser
  • Source:
      UK
  • Link/s:

Christine Ellison aka POLLY FIBRE is an Irish artist based in London. She graduated with an MA from Goldsmiths College, London in 2006.

Bio
She is currently based in London and lectures in Fine Art at the University of Reading. Her work incorporates the use of amplified analogue tools and machines in live performances that confront digital culture with wry critique. Since 2005 her ongoing project POLLYFIBRE; girlband from a post-digital dimension has performed and/or exhibited both internationally and in the UK and Ireland; including at the Haifa Art Museum (2012), Eastside Projects Birmingham (2010), Performa New York (2009), DEAF Electronic Arts Festival Dublin (2009), and Kaunas Art Bienniel (2007/8). Prêt-à-Médiatiser, which premiered at Absolut Fringe Dublin in 2011, is the first production by House of POLLYFIBRE.

Project
Prêt-à-Médiatiser is a performance that takes the fashion show runway as a site for exploration. Derived from Philip Auslander’s writings on the relationship of liveness and meditation it takes as its starting point the premise that live events are already pre-affected by processes of mediation even at the point of their conception.  The show involves a clothing collection designed to be viewed from one angle via documentation but modeled live thus exposing its ‘wrong sides’ whilst attempting to maintain some sense of integrity as a screen-based concept. The collection is made to look like it has been cut and copied from screen interfaces of design software and transferred crudely into a live setting. The clothing is made from tailor’s interfacing cloth and other non-woven fabrics that are cut and pasted and layered into flat rigid pieces that take inspiration from design software interfaces. The sound track is created live using tools of the fashion industry -amplified tailoring shears and cameras – underscored by the ceremonious rhythms of a primal bass drum. Audience become the Press as they are invited to document the show and to post to the event Flickr site. These images and videos are then used to create this consciously synthesized document of the show that exists beyond the live event.

Credits
Concept / Director / Costume Designer / Video Design and Production by Christine Ellison
Producer – Darren McCreesh
Stage Manager / Costume Technician – Lucyanna Moore
Choreography by Serena Brabazon
Lighting Design / Operation by Laura Johnson
Sound Production byMark Ellison
Set Design / Visuals by Angus Wyatt
Models – Nena Andersen, Serena Brabazon, Sarah Carroll, Anastasija Denisova, Alina Dobos, Stefka Stoyanova, Caroline Usher
Noisicians – Caoimhe Derwin (amplified scissors), Mark Ellison (effects), Dylan Higgins (amplified scissors), Laura Hyland (amplified scissors), Andrew Legge (amplified camera), Stella Lucien (drum)
Costume Assistants – Bernie Colhoun, Betty Jean Corcoran, Caroline Harrington, Ulla Juske, Grainne McDermot, Sarah Meehan, Kathryn Payne

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