The Pose
Allison Maria Rodriguez
color video, 6 minutes, 2007

Artist Statement

This piece is about the mechanical composition of an image created by means of a specific technology (the video camera) and this process in relation to desire and power.  It takes place in a basement where an unseen cameraman instructs a young woman dressed as a little girl in how she should behave for the camera.  As the instruction progresses she becomes more and more immobile.  The agency of the subject and her relationship to the cameraman and the audience, who is positioned as ‘I-camera’, becomes more tense as she is rendered incapable of motion.  Through the device of a first person positioning the audience is thereby implicated in the act taking place before them; they are asked to question their relationship to the image.  Essentially, the piece functions as a deconstruction of the act of looking, the technology of the production of an image, and its relationship to power.  Who is in control of the image and who is it created for?  Where is desire located in this relationship of audience to camera to cameraman to subject, and who claims ownership of that desire?

EXHIBITIONS & AWARDS

• Rodriguez took home the “Best Actress Award” at the 2008 Sundeis Film Festival for her performance in The Pose.  (The Pose was also nominated for best graduate director and best graduate film)
• The Pose screened at the “2008 Sundeis Film Festival” at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA.
• The Pose was on exhibit from April 4th – 28th, 2008 at the New England Gallery for Latin American Art as part of the group show “Mezcla:  A Multi-Media Exhibition of Six Latin American Emerging Artists” in East Boston, MA.
• The Pose screened on August 8th, 2008 as part of “Electric Shadows:  An Experimental Film Festival” at Axiom Gallery for New and Experimental Media in Jamaica Plain, MA.
• Read review of The Pose in “The Justice” (The Pose is reviewed on page #2).