15. 9. 2022 20:30
Lee Campbell
live stream from London
CLEVER AT SEEING WITHOUT BEING SEEN
Innovative media reuse, text back and looping, voice layering and the use of filters on the Zoom platform result in a repetitive multi-layered multimedia socially-specific creative live performance by British author Lee Campbell. Through colourful, immersive, structured, organic and disorientating collage, the artist narrates the experiences of young queer people through his personal autobiography. Lee starts from the idea that queer existence itself is inherently performative; engaging the various roles that present themselves in a world of diversity. The world wide web introduces new possibilities for the construction of queer identity. In the manner of bricolage – building and constructing from what is at hand, piecing together images and visuals available on the internet to explain one’s identity to oneself. Sharply and poignantly, the performance evokes many of the feelings that are so common to discovering one’s sexuality in adolescence. The work is raw and authentic, with the artist sharing with the audience his own journey to authenticity and emphasising the message ‘just be yourself’.
Dr Lee Campbell is an artist, poet, experimental filmmaker, writer, Senior Lecturer at University of the Arts London, curator of the regular performance poetry night POW? (Play on Words) in South London and founder of Homo Humour, the first project of its kind on contemporary queer male film and moving image practices that explore humour and LGBTQ+ storytelling. His live Zoom poetry performance CLEVER AT SEEING WITHOUT BEING SEEN has been showcased at events including Disturbance#2, Ugly Duck, London, Theatre Deli, London Festival ECRÃ Edition 5, Rio de Janeiro, and the Immersive Storytelling Symposium, Lakeside Arts Centre in Nottingham.