- 28 Mar 2021 6pm UTC
- dur 10min
This live Zoom performance poem is an exploration into gay male coupledom and the quotidian, PRESS PLAY: A DAY OUT WITH RUFUS relates to what me and my partner Alex remember about a shared experience: a day out with Rufus the dog, the dog we often dog-sit. As individual memories aren’t always shared, the conversation might reveal some startling yet humorous differences in terms of each person’s recollection. Creating a bridge between video and performance, drawings of Rufus that I have made over the course of a few years appear projected onto my body, giving the impression of text and imagery superimposed over my body as a screen/projection space; that I am wearing text/imagery like a garment and of a body that has been layered with fragments of images/history. This effect is achieved through the green-screen effect on Zoom to really push Zoom’s visual aesthetics as a means to frame, act as a visual container and play with different levels of order and chaos through the visual confinement achieved. My body constantly comes in and out of the green screen; my body keeps getting subsumed and emerging again. A tape recorder acts as an extension of my body and offers another set of voices ( those of Alex’s) to that of mine performing and other voices heard elsewhere. An ongoing tension between me and Rufus unfolds throughout the performance as if he’s taking over my body and taking over my relationship with Alex.
BIO: Lee Campbell describes himself as \’a born and bred South Londoner who makes experimental films and performance poetry about being gay and working class using barbaric wit and humour’. He trained in Fine Art at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London in 2005 and received his doctorate in 2016. He has recently performed at LGBT-centred online poetry events including INCITE!, London Queer Writers, POETRYLGBT, and DISTURBANCE, London. His recent films have been selected for many international queer film festivals including Queerbee LGBT Film Festival, The Gilbert Baker Film Festival, Kansas 2020, HOMOGRAPHY, Brussels and STATES OF DESIRE: Tom of Finland in the Queer Imagination, Casa de Duende, Philadelphia, USA. He has been selected for WICKED QUEER 2021 in Boston, USA, one of the oldest and largest LGBT film festivals in the world and will screen one of his recent films at QUEER LIFE, EdgeZones gallery in Miami in May 2021. Forthcoming performances include Cruising Dystopia curated by Nouvelle Organon, Berlin. ARTIST’S WEBSITE