Xandra Ibarra also known as La Chica Boom, is an Oakland bases artist the is known for her performances, videos, and sculptures. Her works focus on the abjection and joy of bodies while also focusing on the borders between proper and improper racialized, gendered, and queer subjects. The work i'd like to talk about is Ibarra's 2021 video, "Nothing Lower Than I" in which we see 3 effeminate zombies roaming around the Northern California coast. The video represents the bottomhood of these zombies showing that they are the ones being dominated and while it continues to happen, they still get up and go about their day as if searching for something else. This idea ties in with Ibarra's message of anti-rape as the zombies imply that they feel wrapped in the authority of their assaulter and are only meant to please them. Even after the assault happens, the zombie feels powerless because they imply they are a zero or known as being less than nothing and so the feelings they harbor, begin to numb them. These people are dehumanized and the world feels little remorse for them. Even if they claim to be dead, their still on the brink of life so no one can really say they are happy. Considering we see three zombies, it could imply that these were the victims of the same offender. Besides the message in the video, I really enjoyed the editing of the video as there's moment in where it feels as if your reading a comic book with these small panels and seeing the movement of the character in each panel. It felt immersive and hearing the words of the hurt, you get a narrative of the ugliness of the world and some of its people they fear. As far as questions go, I wanted to know how long does this video take to shoot? I also wanna know why is it that they chose a panel like narrative for this video?
No comments:
Post a Comment