Statement – Christine Dehne

 “Portrait of the Artist's Daighter as a Fountain” is a reaction to the massive life change of having a baby. 

It is also a clear reference to Bruce Nauman's Self-Portrait as a Fountain, which is of course a clear reference to Duchamp's Fountain.

This video is a piece from a series I am currently working on.

I am in the midst of a multi-year project chronicling my pregnancy and the first year of my daughter’s life.  This, as well as several of my previous projects, fits under the category of “lifelog.” 

Lifelogs were first defined when Steve Mann started wearing a camera and transmitting his daily life online in 1994.  The term has since grown in usage to include substantial archiving of one’s personal experience, not simply wearing a camera 24 hours a day.  This is a new name for a practice has deep roots in the visual arts.  In particular I have been inspired by the performance artist Tehching Hsieh, who has been logging his life for many years.  When working this way artistically the life experience is defined as a piece of art in itself, and the materials that are shared with the viewer are documents, but also pieces of artwork, which chronicle the larger life piece.

My current project includes (but is not limited to): changes in my body during and after pregnancy and breastfeeding, changes in the eating and sleep patterns of my baby, and the costs of preparing for, having, and raising a child.  I am currently pulling together the materials that I’ve been collecting and creating pieces of artwork from them.  

The video “Portrait of the Artist's Daughter as a Fountain” shown above is a sample of work from this project.  I will create a cohesive whole of materials including several videos, animations, website, logs, etc. that can be shown together with individual pieces that can also be separated out, allowing for me to show the entire piece or parts of it.

In 2004 I created a project for a show at Atlanta’s Eyedrum Gallery in which I documented my weight loss, exercise, and eating during a several month period. See support materials at: http://christinedehne.com/MoreVideos.htm.  This links to 2 videos that I made for “My Obsession” at Atlanta’s Eyedrum Gallery in 2004.

In the performance piece “Jumps and Failures” I explore my own struggle with the common obsession women have with appearance, physical fitness, and weight.  Producing a series of endurance performances in the tradition of Vito Acconci’s “Step Piece”, I push my body to physical exhaustion to explore the extremes that I am willing to go to in order to control my body.

In a similar vein, for “The New Me” I chronicle the changes that my body undergoes over several weeks as I am exercising regularly.  My changing measurements are recited by a robotic voice, further calling attention to the harsh judgment that I subject myself to.  In the end the tried and true fact is revealed: there are some things about myself that I can change, there are some that I cannot.  It’s simply a struggle against the self.

Also shown with these two videos were a food diary with calorie counts for everything I ate and a weight training/exercise log with all of the exercises I did during the several month duration of this project.  Each of these videos was first shown in the full installation, with all of the other support materials, at Eyedrum gallery.