The multifarious identity: intersections of gender, sexuality and indigeneity

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)This exegesis forms part of a creative body of work that explores elements of my identity through an examination of gender, sexuality and Indigeneity. The written work complements an installation exhibition presented in real-space and, in documentation of the exhibition work, on DVD. The installation uses sound, image, light, video, texture and object to examine these markers of identity. <i>The Multifarious Identity</i> comprises five installation works each occupying physically discrete spaces within the Watt Space Gallery (2006). The works - <i>Simulacra: Everyday Alone in Perspex; Prurience: Obfuscation and Immersion; Recidivism: Mens Rea, Actus Reus; Confabulation; Multifarious Identity; Good and Fair: Lift Up Thy Prayer for the Remnant that is Left</i> - explore the gendered, sexualised and Indigenous (Australian) body of the artist. The audience follows an investigation of the intersections that comprise a singular, multifarious identity. A recurrent image of a clitoris as a constant representation of the artist. It is present, yet replaced within each work as other elements of the body of the artist become available to the audience. Narrative soundscape too acts as a binding agent. Sound is discreetly managed within each space, yet the overheard sounds bleed across galleries to inform the audience of the connection and conflation of these individual identity markers unified in the din of multiple soundscapes. An examination of markers of individual identity would be difficult without focusing on a specific individual. For this reason the body and experiences of the artist are offered not as a true record or pure exemplar of the gendered, sexualised or Indigenous body, but as a reference point for exploration of the examined areas of identity