[-empyre-] matrilineage

[Jessica Posner]

Did I scare everyone off with my mention of utopic, revelatory lesbian sex? WOOPS. More feminism and sex below, please proceed with caution. 

I feel like a conversation about Schneeman’s and Hammer's work would be incomplete without the mention of sex itself— and the same goes for Hammer’s work and lesbian aesthetics. Most importantly slippery playfulness, a sense of being in relation to others while implicated as voyeur; and then the potential loneliness that swings in as ballast. Thank you, Patrick, for sharing the articles on community and loneliness— as I feel so much of the way these women showed us how to look was about seeing ourselves in relation to others— in both presence and absence of other humans and non-humans. I also think it is worth noting how these women all operated on the margins by virtue of their sex. 

When I make work, I often try to make work that I think my feminist art ancestors would enjoy or find funny. My most recent work is "SISTER SHARK,” a 12 minute art video in which I edit all the men out of Stephen Spielberg’s 1975 film JAWS. There is a live performance component too, but the video stands alone. 

As I mentioned in my prior post, I have little to no relationship with my Mother’s family beyond this one mythology: all of my mother’s five sisters are extras in the movie JAWS, as it was shot in 1974 on Martha’s Vineyard when it was still a working class resort town. My maternal grandmother (whom I’ve never met) owned a family home there. My mother isn’t in the film, but she did meet Bruce the mechanical shark because her ex-boyfriend worked in the small marina where he was stored during shooting. She remarked “thing was huge, but didn’t work well.” In a surprising coincidence, one of the few named female characters in the film is “Mrs. Posner,” which became my mother’s name when she married my father a decade after meeting Bruce. It’s the same name all my paternal grandmothers and aunts took, and the name I share with my sister and paternal cousins (with whom I am close). The only woman on the production team of JAWS was Verna Fields, the film’s Academy Award winning editor. I like to think of this work as a gesture of looking for the women of my Matrilineage, and as a funny gift for all women editors. 

My partner, Joanna Spitzner, contributed the “new” score; which I think blends brilliantly with John Williams’s. Here is the link: https://vimeo.com/321561467 <https://vimeo.com/321561467>

If you’re curious about the live performance, I’m looking to tour it this year. It uses this video, karaoke, and a lecture to my expand my personal mythology into a mesh text connecting Lady Gaga, R. Kelly, Christina Aguilera, #metoo, toxic masculinity, lesbianism, and my theory that Bruce the mechanical shark is a vagina dentate. I premiered a version of the performance this January in Brooklyn to great reception, and would love to share it with more folks! 

From those depths and the shallows, 
Jessica Posner

jessicaposner.com
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