Eyelash Wars is an immersive installation by Inflatable Deities - a collaboration with Emily Pelstring at FOFA Gallery in Montreal, QC, 2014.
This piece is about a small town in an alternate reality. In this realm, the dominant fiction is a rivalry between two female entrepreneurs who battle for supremacy in the false eyelash business. A 22-minute single-channel experimental musical features these characters competing by putting on elaborate window displays that escalate in scale and symbolism. Video sculptures within the installation space explore secondary "townspeople" characters through expressions of their dreams and desires. The work explores gender caricature and the spectacles of consumer culture.
Video still form Better Man, 2015, Fofa Gallery, Montreal, Canada
In "Prom Girl's Vanity", a TV placed on a customized vanity table facing a mirror shows a secret video only viewable from certain angles. The video image is framed by an illustration, which is then framed by a projection. The video playing on the TV is a mini-musical called "Shadow of a Woman", in which Prom Girl awakens in the middle of the night to find Gold Dust Woman serenading her over a midi track.
Video still from "Shadow of a Woman", Prom Girl played by Michele Ayoub (pictured).
Video Still from “Shadow of a Woman”, vocals and performance of Gold Dust Woman by Michelle Tompkins (pictured).
Pictured is a diorama of the town where the tale of Eyelash Wars unfolds. Using a TV, glass screen and the 18th cent. theatrical technique, Pepper’s Ghost, the image of Cool Wolf appears dancing in the streets of the diorama.
Live, Inflatable Deities performance in conjunction with the Eyelash Wars exhibition at FOFA Gallery, 2014
Video still from Eyelash Wars, 2014
Video Still from Eyelash Wars, 2014
Installation in the exterior of FOFA Gallery
Installation in the exterior of FOFA Gallery