The CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY AND DIGITAL PERFORMANCE at Brunel University, London, invites you to:

Daniel Ploeger
"Thinking Critical/Looking Sexy"

Cultural theorist Rob Cover (2003) has suggested that the unstable character of relational contexts in postmodern culture results in all nudity potentially signifying sexuality. Accordingly, I suggest that the presentation of naked bodies in contemporary performance art is always likely to be perceived as sexual. In addition, I observe that many body artists perform transgressive actions that appear to reject normative body culture, but at the same time demonstrate a fascination with the very mainstream body-beautiful ideals their actions seem to challenge; their bodies as well as their self-representation in the media often reveal a careful maintenance of their bodies through exercise regimes and other cosmetic endeavors in accordance with cultural norms.  In this presentation, I propose an approach that seeks to actively provoke the sexualization of the performer's body (thus accommodating fascinations with normative bodily regimes), whilst at the same time undermining this reading by equally heightening cues that suggest a medical, commodified and artistic reading of the body. 

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Dani Ploeger is an artist and theorist, living and working in London and Berlin. His performance installations often involve cheap readily available medical and consumer technologies and explore themes around the technologized  body, sexuality and vanity. His artwork has been featured in venues such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Basel, Experimental Intermedia  in New York, para/site art space in Hong Kong and KipVis in Vlissingen,  Netherlands. His writing in the field of digital art and cultural studies has been published in the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media and the Body, Space and Technology Journal , among  others. He is also a permanent contributor to The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory (Oxford University Press). Dani is a studio artist at ]performance s p a c e[ in London. After holding a position as Lecturer in Performing Arts at De Montfort University in Leicester, he was appointed  as Lecturer in Theatre and Digital Arts at Brunel University London in 2012.]

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ELECTRODE BY Dani Ploeger @ Konnecting Gestures, Artoud Forum 2, London