Portfolio

Abstract

Portfolio Jibz Cameron aka Dynasty Handbag (bio) Fascist Dictatorship Makeup Tutorial Tutorials are ubiquitous now, and a language well understood for communicating needed skills. So it was a perfect platform to relay useful information to the masses about how to look your best under the new regime! Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Dynasty Handbag, Fascist Dictatorship Makeup Tutorial (2016), Digital video. Courtesy the artist. [End Page 88] Vague I appropriated Madonna's appropriated "Vogue" as a launchpad for anti-precision representation. The concept that Madonna should need a safe space to give herself a platform to express herself is itself inappropriate and offensive. This is also a response to living in LA, without clarity. Where I never know if I am on a date, making a development deal, or simply taking a two-hour hike midday–mid week. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. Dynasty Handbag, Vague (2016), Digital video. Courtesy the artist. I Can't Stop Thinking 'Bout Having Sex With You Girl The country music structure is a beautiful simpleton relief from the complex lesbian emotional landscape. Staying rooted firmly in fantasy is a perfect way to avoid commitment. Soggy Glasses, A Homo's Odyssey In the common representation of the hero's journey, man gets to meet his mortality and contend with his morality. Women often meet their mortality only when they are in fear of being R'd or murdered by a man or an alien that represents a man. I wanted to take back the dark night of the Dark Night and plop myself in this allegory. What does my mortality look like without the heteronormative prison that makes a woman's exploration suffocate? Do we get to know our [End Page 89] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 3. Dynasty Handbag, I Can't Stop Thinking 'Bout Having Sex With You Girl (2016), Digital video. Courtesy the artist. bodies? Our creative selves? Do we get to rest a bit and watch a remake of The Perfect Storm wherein Linda Greenlaw, the first female fishing boat captain, is the complex hero of the story and not just a foxy piece that worries about the safety of George Clooney? [End Page 90] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 4. Dynasty Handbag, Soggy Glasses, A Homo's Odyssey (2014), Performance. Photograph by Alex Escalante. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 5. Dynasty Handbag, Soggy Glasses, A Homo's Odyssey (2014), Performance. Photograph by Alex Escalante. [End Page 91] Jibz Cameron aka Dynasty Handbag Jibz Cameron is a performance/video artist and actor living in Los Angeles. Her multi-media performance work as alter ego Dynasty Handbag has spanned fifteen years and been presented at such institutions as MOCA Los Angeles, PS1, Joe's Pub, The Kitchen, REDCAT, The Broad Museum, Hammer Museum, New Museum of Contemporary Art—New York, among others. She has been heralded by the New York Times as "the funniest and most pitch perfect performance seen in years" and "outrageously smart, grotesque and innovative" by The New Yorker. She has written and produced seven evening-length performance pieces and countless short works that have been performed in clubs and venues internationally. She has produced multiple video works and two albums of original music. In addition to her work as Dynasty Handbag, she has also been seen acting in films, theater, and television (internet web series no one has seen). She works as a professor of performance and comedy related subjects, as well as lecturing and teaching workshops. Jibz also produces and hosts Weirdo Night!, a monthly comedy and performance event in Los Angeles. Copyright © 2020 Wayne State University Press