Shana Moulton Explained

Shana Moulton
Birth Date:July 17, 1976
Birth Place:Oakhurst, California
Nationality:American
Known For:Video art
Notable Works:Whispering Pines, The Mountain Where Everything is Upside Down
Awards:Creative Capital Grant (2013)

Shana Moulton is a New York based media artist who explores contemporary anxieties through her filmic alter ego, Cynthia. Combining an unsettling, wry humor with a low-tech, Pop sensibility, Cynthia's interactions with the everyday world are both mundane and surreal, in a domestic sphere just slightly askew. As her protagonist navigates the enigmatic and possibly magical properties of her home decor, Moulton initiates relationships with objects and consumer products that are at once banal and uncanny.[1]

Background and education

Born in Oakhurst, California, Shana Moulton attended the University of California, Berkeley and continued to receive a MFA from Carnegie Mellon University. She has also studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and De Ateliers in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Moulton has been an artist in resident at Harvestworks, New York City (2008), and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (2011). She has also received fellowships and grants from the Experimental Television Center (2009), the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2009), and Harvestworks (2010).[2] She currently works in Brooklyn, New York.[3]

Works

Whispering Pines

The 10-part video series, Whispering Pines follows the protagonist's search for perfect health and peace through consumer objects.[4] Cynthia, Moulton's intimately autobiographical, surreal, video alter-ego, interacts with appropriated new-age marginalia, prescription drugs, and beauty products in scenes that address the difficulties of self-discovery and fulfillment in a modern, consumerism-driven society.[5] Moulton explains that she is not required to 'get into character' for Cynthia; Cynthia is always there. Moulton says of her alter-ego, "It's me in the bathroom; it's me worried about aging; it's me looking at a beauty magazine... We share a brain. I don't even think of her as a character. It's just me."[6] [7] Through Moulton's narrative of self-discovery, Cynthia gains relief from the social pressures of her domestic products by using them in non-prescribed ways.[8] [9] Parts of the Whispering Pines series have been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts (St. Petersburg, Florida) and the New Museum.

Restless Leg Saga (2012)

Restless Leg Saga is a 7:24 minute-long film that follows Cynthia’s search for a cure for her restless leg syndrome. Like her other works, she attempts to find relief through pharmaceutical ads on television and in magazines.[10] Restless Leg Saga was displayed to the public at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2013.

MindPlace ThoughtStream (2014)

MindPlace Thoughtstream is a 12-minute-long film that follows the protagonist’s search for health and confrontation with the social expectations of female health.[11] The video focuses on Cynthia, Moulton’s kitschy alter-ego, who uses an appropriated New Age device to access the inside of her own mind. Cynthia, played by Moulton, deals with several stress-related ailments and searches for a cure through various New Age therapy devices including appropriated objects and pharmaceutical drugs claiming to offer a special cure marketed towards Cynthia’s demographic.[12] MindPlace ThoughtStream has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw.

Exhibitions

Solo

External links

Notes and References

  1. Focus: Shana Moulton . Beck . Graham T. . Frieze.
  2. http://www.shanamoulton.info/ Shana Moulton
  3. Web site: Shana Moulton . February 1, 2014 . . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140203100658/http://www.eai.org/artistBio.htm?id=10320 . February 3, 2014 .
  4. Fernald . Chris . Linnert . Nicolas . Garrard . Rachel . Kardel . Sissel . Kramer . Lola . Meager . Patrick . Productions of meaningful transformation within feminine consumer experiences . Silvershed Reader . 2 . 2013.
  5. The Object Whisperer: Shana Moulton's Whispering Pines . Droitcour . Brian . Rhizome. 14 April 2010 .
  6. News: Beck . Graham T. . 2012-10-01 . Focus: Shana Moulton . 2024-05-16 . Frieze . en . 150 . 0962-0672.
  7. http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/focus-shana-moulton/ Beck, Graham Frieze October 2012
  8. Holland . Faith . Watter . Seth Barry . Fall 2019 . FROM PICTURE TO ASTRAL PLANE: Shana Moulton's Whispering Pines . . 70 . 24–34 . Gale Academic Onefile.
  9. Shana Moulton . Antonini . Marco . Flash Art . 269 . November 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140219014538/http://www.flashartonline.com/interno.php?pagina=articolo_det&id_art=422&det=ok&title=SHANA-MOULTON . 2014-02-19 .
  10. Web site: Electronic Arts Intermix: Restless Leg Saga, Shana Moulton . 2024-05-16 . www.eai.org.
  11. Web site: The All-Natural, Totally American, Completely Anxiety-Free Woman . 2024-05-16 . www.flaunt.com.
  12. Connolly . Maeve . 2013 . Televisual Objects: Props, Relics and Prosthetics . Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry . 33 . 66–77 . 10.1086/672021 . 10.1086/672021 . 1465-4253.

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