Revolution Revolution

Revolution Revolution is performance and video work by Gillian Dykeman that activates the latent radical potential of the human energy amassed through engaging fitness. Operating as a home stationary bike workout, Revolution Revolution delivers fitness instruction in tandem with revolutionary rhetoric. Utopia is latent within the everyday, so how do we move from sliding over its radical possibilities and instead find a way to activate it? What is the energy of revolution? How do we better engineer our energetic outputs to formulate collective ways of being out of a culture that glorifies individualism …to radically reimagine what it is we’re doing with our lives?  Our life-force? Our love? See more on Vimeo and HERE

Revolution Revolution has been presented over dozen times as either a exercise-bike or aerobics based performance both live and as video installations. The performances include fitness instruction and revolutionary rhetoric, usually tailored to a given location or exhibition theme. Below is the documentation from the development and presentation of this work at the Banff Centre for the Arts.

I did an independent residency in November and December of 2017 at the Banff Centre, where I developed Revolution Revolution work substantially. I made a large backdrop painting 7′ x 12′ for the video version of this work.  It’s a watercolour on canvas. At this time, the major focus of my revolutionary rhetoric was on the needs of contemporary workers; the Precariat in particular.

Thanks again to artsnb.

REVOLUTION REVOLUTION harnesses the amazing energies generated by a roomful of people focusing together on a demanding task. This performance activates the latent radical potential of the human energy amassed through engaging fitness. Operating as a stationary bike workout and fitness movement (complete with its own posters, costumes, and YouTube home fitness videos), Revolution Revolution delivers fitness instruction in tandem with revolutionary rhetoric. Utopia is latent within the everyday, so how do we move from sliding over its radical possibilities and instead find a way to activate it? What is the energy of revolution? How do we better engineer our energetic outputs to formulate collective ways of being out of a culture that glorifies individualism …to radically reimagine what it is we’re doing with our lives?  Our life-force? Our love? 

 Thanks so much to artsnb for supporting this new project.

I had an exhibition of this work at Saint Mary’s University Gallery in the summer of 2017. It was shown in tandem with AgitProp: Soviet Propaganda 1905-1945; an exhibition of Soviet Poster Art.

Dispatches from the Future Feminist Utopia is a work revisiting major earthworks and recasting them as abandoned alien technology. Feminists in the future have appropriated these devices (the earthworks) to bring forth the feminist utopia.The narrative voice (spoken as the moon) is polyvocal and decentred through multiple genders and accents. This work – an installation of sculptures and watercolour schematic drawings, and videos – describe how to activate the earthwork devices to bring on the feminist utopia now. The works compel the dispatch recipients to find their own iteration of this possibility.

Dispatches from the Feminist Utopian Future from Gillian Dykeman on Vimeo.

As a tour guide somewhere between wilderness interpreter and docent, I lead attendees through the exhibition and onto Chicago’s Famous Midway Plaisance. I interpreted the landscapes of Lands End under the same terms as the landscape around the gallery. I drew the tour content from historical facts, overly personal stories, and lyrics from the Broadway musical My Fair Lady.

http://arts.uchicago.edu/landsend

Update: Here is the Audio Tour!

Blue Crushed is my personal re-interpretation of the movie Blue Crush. It’s a two-part video installation consisting of a 47 minute reprise of the original film, as well as a short loop of the protagonist doing chin-ups forever. I’ve altered to movie to exclude anti-feminist content, and to take ownership over the portrayal of female empowerment through sport, solidarity, and friendship. For more, see my artist statement below, or do one better and head to Forest City Gallery for the Activation exhibit (includes this work) before October 18.

Music by Chromatics

ARTIST STATEMENT

The Feminist Film Project production Blue Crushed (2013) offers a non-utopic but optimistic depiction of story telling in a feminist domain. Erasing the patriarchy is a fraught and seemingly futile gesture, but opening up a space – even imaginary – where gender-based dominance and patriarchal norms are absent (especially in a space where they are expected) invites the viewer to question the appearance of these norms wherever they manifest. This work speaks to my interest in the resistance expressed by the presence of female bodies in spaces oriented toward status quo patriarchal norms – in this instance Hollywood Movies and “macho” sports. Blue Crush (2002) expresses a lot of tension between subjectivity vs. objectivity, self-objectification and identity. The film then undermines any clear feminist message through typical concessions to the patriarchy.  Blue Crushed (2013) removes these concessions; our protagonist’s main concern becomes overcoming her trauma from a near-drowning incident, and to a lesser degree developing her relationship with her younger sister. I’ve also removed anti-feminist sentiments and scenarios that undermine our protagonist’s subjectivity. Inter-female competitiveness (rather than solidarity in common struggle) is taken out in favour of solidarity in sisterhood. Her friends are still allowed to call her out and encourage her to succeed, but depictions of female relationships as being conflict-centred are removed as I’ve judged them to be anti-feminist. I’ve also removed the love vs. personal success sub-plot; I felt this scenario too reinforces a myth that maintains patriarchal hegemony. Messages of sisterhood, empowerment through the presence of the physical body in sport, and confronting one’s own fears in order to succeed define Blue Crushed. The Feminist Film project will eventually consist of a small library of edited and re-imagined films. Blue Crushed is the first instalment.

No Mercy