Stand Behind Me, 2013

For the video-installation/performance Stand Behind Me, American artist Liz Magic Laser worked with dancer Ariel Freedman to adapt oratorical gestures from 2013 speeches made by an international range of politicians. The performer turns her back to the audience to face a video camera that transmits a live-feed projection in which the audience becomes the backdrop. A teleprompter displays the corresponding script delivered by each politician being mimicked. Performances took place at the Lisson Gallery, at Wiels, Brussels, for ExperienZ and at the National Palace of Culture, Sofia, for Sofia Contemporary, Bulgaria.
In STUK, the video-installation of the performance at Lisson Gallery is being shown. Politicians are presented as magicians on stage, using body language and speech to sell their illusions to the public.
Stand Behind Me, together with Digital Face, 2012 are works for which Liz Magic Laser studied the effects of the gestural, linking contemporary practices to the methods of François Delsarte. This 19th century French musician and teacher developed an acting style that attempted to connect the inner emotional experience of the actor to a systematized set of gestures and movements. The Delsarte method was subsequently widely misinterpreted and devolved into melodramatic posing.

Liz Magic Laser (USA)
°1981, New York

Liz Magic Laser is a video and performance artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Her videos and performances intervene in semi-public spaces such as bank vestibules, movie theaters and newsrooms, and have involved collaborations with actors, surgeons, political strategists and motorcycle gang members. She earned a BA from Wesleyan University (2003) and an MFA from Columbia University (2008). She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture (2008) and the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program (2009). Liz Magic Laser is based in Brooklyn, New York.