Nora Jacobs
Nora Jacobs
Performance, Installation, Video
Berlin, Germany -– lives and works in Vienna/Austria
01.04.2018 - 30.06.2018
Curriculum Vitae
Coming from theatre and having worked in a circus before the medium of performance allows me to make a direct physical impact with my presence without the restrictions of a theatre or circus both space and content wise. It seems performance does not know borders. I want the audience to have a one-to-one encounter with the artwork that lasts over the actual encounter not only conceptually. Combining performance with the more constant medium of installation allows me to leave a mark that physically exists beyond the actual performance. Performance induces a change and the installation is ultimately altered. Through the medium of performance with the help of the installation space is visually changed. A before and after is created with a moment of in-between.
In my work I deal with the topic of boundary. However, I do not understand boundary as a separating line but as a three-dimensional space, an in-between space, where everything is possible. It is less about the geographical situated boundary but rather about the in-between: Gender, sex, curtains, differences, places that unite a beginning and an end simultaneously, the foreign and the known and constant reoccurring interdependencies. It is a game with the fake, with a role: something pretends to be something else, imitation and deception play with the expectations of the audience. Throughout the years I have created several fictitious characters some more deeply than others. They are constantly developing and appear either in performances or in front of the camera. There is for example Cowdy, a woman playing a man who looks like a cowboy but who is not very successful in doing so or the character Mr. Y, a reference to My Friend by John Miller, who claims foreign art pieces for himself or STARLET the constantly emerging Art Star, who tests herself, tries being famous and fails miserably. She is played by a woman, who plays a man who dresses up as a drag queen As different as they may seem they are all connected by not only playing with gender identities and attempting to break the still very present binary gender categories but also by suggesting something else than patriarchy or matriarchy. The characters are drawn very over the top. Theatricality and humour play a very important part however the characters take themselves very seriously.
For the Rote Fabrik Residency I would like to develop a performance/installation piece that uses the local space and the materials around it. I am looking for people, who are interested in performing with STARLET, who is finally ready to make friends on and off screen.
