Alice Karveli

For me as an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on performance and thriving best at the intersections of media, there is so much overlap between my performance work and self portraiture that indeed most of any of the latter I’ve produced in the last 8 years has been through, in support and as byproduct of, the performance work. They have become completely interwoven.In the most recent performance works I have had other people behind the camera as help but under my direction and in the past I have worked mostly alone with the camera, something I will be doing more of again soon because I love the low-pressure, privacy and self-intimacy that comes with that, something I do believe gives a different quality to the work that can be interesting in itself.

Working with the right people behind the camera can be an amazing experience with different capabilities (like moving camera shots for video, the cross pollination of two different artist’s practices, a fresh collaborative perspective behind the lens etc) but regardless, even before I get to that stage with a project, I will almost always rehearse and try things out on my own in front of the camera.

I use my body, its senses and capabilities as one of my main mediums of expression so this comes as a natural process for me. Before I was fully working with performance, earlier in life I started with photography so naturally, using my self and my own body as the subject since I was interested in the human element in the context of photography, was an intuitive thing to do and from there moving into performance was the organic progression of things for me.

When creating a bigger performative work, I will often use video and photography separately, somethings both digital and analog photography alike, taking extra shots as supporting material to the overall piece. I will also pick out stills from the video (both before and after editing) and keep as “photographs”, sometimes doing more editing and overlaying on photoshop to create yet another type of image as supporting work.

Moreover, when alone, I like the challenge of seeing what I can do and how creative I can get with my use of the camera (which camera/lens, in what way, how to set-up etc) which is another reason why I look forward to delving into this way of working once again with more experience and fresh perspective, starting a new body of work in performative-photography and video-clips. I feel I am at the verge of new experiments and explorations after more experience with body and movement performance training in dance, especially Butoh dance and having the intimacy of working solo may just be the way of going deep enough into those dark corners that are sometimes harder to access when others are present.