Isabelle McEwen

Biography

Isabelle McEwen was born in Montreal, Canada. After her BA of Arts she came to Germany to study opera direction. She was the assistant of French director Jérôme Savary. She produced and directed contemporary operas with a group that she founded. From 1989 to 1998 she worked with Hungarian artist Leonard Dax on experimental art projects and installations. In the last few years she has been working on her own again, doing art and web art projects including one based on the pornographic texts of an internet encounter. She worked on a dance performance in Rotterdam and started 2003 working on her multimedia project WHORE which in the meanwhile involves a theater performance, a short film and a video installation. She lives in Hamburg and writes a doctoral thesis at the University of Hamburg on feminist pornography and the forms of its media representation.

Studies:
1977 Bachelor of Arts (Communication Studies), Concordia University, Montréal

1989 Diplom Musiktheater-Regie, mit Auszeichnung, Hochschule für Musik und Theater/ Universität Hamburg

since 2001 writes a doctorate thesis at the Universität Hamburg (Medienkultur)

1986 - 1988 assistant of French director Jérôme Savary in Germany (Hamburg) and in Austria (Vienna and Bregenzer Festspiele)

1989 - 1990 guest lecturer (opera class) at the Musikhochschule Lübeck

Theater work (opera):
1985 Bach, Kaffeekantate / Bauernkantate, Opera stabile (Hamburgische Staatsoper), Hamburg

1987 F. Poulenc, Les mamelles de Tirésias, Hochschule für Musik und Theater

1988 M. Ohana, Trois contes de l'honorable fleur, Opera stabile (Hamburgische Staatsoper), Hamburg und Hebbel Theater, Berlin

1989 M.-A. Turnage, Greek, Kampnagel, Hamburg

1990 E. Krenek, What price confidence? Hochschule für Musik, Lübeck

1991 W.-A.Mozart, Zauberflöte, Mitteldeutsches Landestheater, Wittenberg

1993 A. Toovey, Ubu, Opera stabile (Hamburgische Staatsoper), Hamburg

1993 T. Johnson, Vier-Ton-Oper, Stadttheater Gießen

1997 W. Siebert, Der Untergang der Titanic, Opernhaus Halle

Theater work (performance):
1999 waiting for my turn to die, I'm sure I heard a laugh.., Dansateliers, Rotterdam

2003 Hure (damit keine Stille eintritt) (work-in progress), Festival feuer + flamme, Kampnagel, Hamburg

2005 HURE, theater performance after Nelly Arcan, Hamburger Sprechwerk, Hamburg

Visual work:
1989 - 1997 collaboration with Leonard Dax on art projects and installations

1999 untold stories, future lies, solo exhibit at the D'X Galerie, Hamburg

2000 3. Hamburger Kulturbörse, Hamburg

2001 - 2004 e-sesso (not yet shown)

since 2002 web art

Film:
2006 WHORE, world premiere at the Antimatter Underground Film Festival, Victoria, Canada

www.isabelle-mcewen.eu

Frenzy

Video installation

The images of the installation belong to my theater performance WHORE which will be shown in Berlin at the end of November. Outside the dramaturgical frame of reference of the performance they seem more abstract but they also have a more powerfull impact. The shooting of the material took place in 2005. It all started with an ad in a monthly city magazine: "looking for performers for art porn film" which had an enormous success. Part of the fascination of the images rests in the fact that the people they show are "normal" people, not "beautiful" people and not porn actors. These people shock and that's what I wanted.

I had no intention to turn on. The woman is in most shots hardly visible whereas the men are the focus of attention. The shooting had rules but the men were real. Their desire was also real. The documentary aspect was important to me. I was interested in the faces, in the eyes, in all demontration of lust. I believe that a grotesque but very real image of our society as a whole emerged out of the process.

Looked one by one the shots have the authenticity of home movies as well as the esthetical clarity of staged images. The installation is a humorous homage to Rubens' "Last Jugement". I mean here the way in which the bodies writhe, in which the editing makes them to fit into each other and merge into an opulent picture. The flowers are part of the staging too. Also they allude to the Dutch painting of the 17th century. They are the last retreat for beauty when the bodies threaten to question its very existence.

Personally and artistically the role of my cameraman was of utmost importance. Without him the shots wouldn't have come into being. I needed his man's imperious gaze to observe my subject. I wanted the camera to look the way the men themselves looked into the objective of the camera during the shootings. The gaze of men shows that they have been rulers for a very long time. The gaze of women is often surreptitious. The camera fonstions here as a catalyst of the sexual desire that it captures at the same time. Beyond traditional moral concepts and esthetical touchiness it is the theme of this work which I dedicate to the men who accepted to get involved.