Joanna Byrne (2019) Actante #6 [CTMC] 35mm film still with cosmetics.
A 35mm slide related to my expanded cinema performance 'Cleanse, Tone, Moisturise [Conceal]'. In this live 16mm film, a looped advertising image starring a Hollywood actress doing the double shift for the beauty industry is treated with cosmetics as it runs through the projector.
Joanna Byrne is an artist-filmmaker and writer based in Leeds/Bradford. She works with super8 and 16mm film in a tactile, material way - incorporating found footage, hand-manipulation and physical traces of her body into her work. She performs with live projections and sound to create immersive expanded cinema experiences.
Byrne is interested in historical and contemporary cinemas and the stories they tell about femininity and sexuality. Her films and performances often explore entanglements of being and looking in the female experience of cinema and visual culture. Recently she has begun considering the possibilities of a female bi+ gaze in film.
She has a socially-engaged practice and collaboration with other people is important. Byrne is interested in how experimental, participatory film practices can be therapeutic and transformational: connecting us as individuals to each other, but also to shared communities, histories and stories, the wider world and even Planet Earth.
For Loose Screw, Byrne will create a 16mm ‘moving meditation’ on therapeutic healing, exploring the integration of different aspects of the Self through a practice of re-connecting with nature.
Image description: A photograph taken on slide film and treated with cosmetic substances. A beautiful young-looking female face is turned slightly away from the camera. The lips are bright red and parted. Her face has a bluish tinge. The image is bleached and layered with black abstract, painterly patterns that look like waves at sea.
website: joannaruthbyrne.com
instagram: @joannaruthbyrne