samedi 8 octobre (Commissaire : Manon Tourigny)

Marie-Suzanne Désilets

Oh, the (sordid) world of Internet dating.

How do you represent yourself? So many possible angles and attitudes that could be posted to your profile. Which one is the one you want to show to the world? To that “Special Someone?” What kind of man (or woman) do you want to attract, do you want to meet?

On one screen: A Power Point presentation flashing a series of bilingual statements.

Some examples here in English:
“I’m looking for a lover.”
“Use wisely the language of Molière.”
“Show that you are a positive person.”

On the other screen: taking Photobooth pictures of herself.

Right screen:
“I didn’t put my real photo, what did you think?”
“I spend all of my time in front of the computer.”

Left screen:
Shirt comes off, shoulder leans in, eyebrow lifts, 3-2-1-CLICK.

A continual interplay between the two surfaces.

Marie-Suzanne Désilets

The shots of herself in various poses imply a forced seduction while professing a simultaneous abjectness. This in counterpoint to her series of statements (derived from, among other sources, dating site stats and the occasional words of wisdom delivered by her mother and father) which sporadically give way to pornographic interpolations then over to a series of head & shoulder snapshots – the men who Marie-Suzanne has possibly Internet-dated?

In one part of her performance she decides to launch iTunes and is listening to music at her laptop in her headphones. We are now watching her just “be at home” in front of us, the audience. Drinking wine. Eating fruit. Gazing at her computer. Marie-Suzanne diligently doing her dating research.

At another point she vacates the spot in front of her computer altogether and walks off to the side to look at the scene in its entirety. Can she “more objectively” see the situation that she has now found herself in?

In witnessing this performance it appears as though we are surveing the culmination of several months (years?) of this, her ongoing quest for “the one.” Placing the action outside of herself, creating a distance from the quest (from which to experience another vantage point) she creates a space for reflection: a site from which her collected findings may be observed in another light, that of the performative present. And in that present, perhaps the event – a public manifestation – may serve as a turning point and as a platform: the place from which Marie-Suzanne’s authentic desire, and the performance of it, may fruitfully commingle.