Dad Dracula Is Dead // 2009
‘Dad Dracula is Dead’
HD-video projection, 16:9, colour, English and German with English subtitles, 13 min.
Dad Dracula is Dead is the first instalment of a three-part video project that refers to certain stereotypes of character presentation in European and US film and TV history. It looks back to the cinema of the twenties and thirties, a time of transition not only from silent film to ‘talkies’ but also for an increasingly regimented film industry. Although censorship codes were relaxed after World War I, there was a concurrent tendency to establish new control structures (such as the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930) to accompany the birth of film as a mass medium.
Dialogue from the movies of the time, including Anders als die Anderen, The Soilers, Mädchen in Uniform, Queen Christina, Sylvia Scarlett and Dracula’s Daughter is repeated in Dad Dracula’s Dead, performing a loop within this history. The characters from the films adopt the prevailing norms of living in that society, visible through their connections to and dependencies on each other. When amateur actresses and actors apply the effort that it takes to perform another identity and repeat these conventions, the act of appropriation is kept visible. This re-re-enactment of ways of living makes any obvious separation between the natural and the staged difficult. The norm has to be repeated, in order to be achieved.
Orchids // 2008
Orchids // 2008
Video, 21:12 min, 2008 German with English subtitles.
In ‘orchids’ a 72 year old woman is telling stories about her life, especially about her relationship with her gay friend Peter, whom she married a couple of years ago. It´s about friendship, relationship, sex, love and family. These terms are mentioned in the story again and again, negotiating their possible meanings and problematizing their common definitions. The narrator stays invisible and also the questions she refers to are cut out.
The Zines 1-3 // 2007
The Zines 1-3
Zine 1, ‘Beside’, A4, 60 p., Zine 2, ‘Title’, A5, 28 p., Zine 3, ‘The Zines 1, 2, 3’, A4, 20 p., laser print, 2007
Zine 1 contains photos of urban places showing details like billboards, waste, people, dead mice, plants leftovers, cemeteries, beaches, fences, parks, high-rise buildings, plastic objects, shop-windows. The images deal with negligibilities.
Zine 2 is a collection of scanned book covers. The book cover makes a suggestion about the content of the book, the reader decides what to believe. And sometimes you already know that your own imagination of the content might be more interesting than the actual book.
Zine 3 consists of the unedited responses followed by an open call to write something about zine 1 or 2, questioning the potential of images and their capacity to contain meaning.
Rebecca Ann Tess
Rebecca Ann Tess (*1980) studied fine arts at the Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, University of Fine Arts, Berlin and at the Chelsea College of Art and Design, London. Tess has exhibited most recently among others at the Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, at the Kunstverein, Aachen, at the »Videonale 12« in the Kunstmuseum, Bonn and with the group »Free Class Frankfurt/M.« at the Frankfurter Kunstverein. She lives and works in Frankfurt am Main.