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I work with the things we do — the social customs and cultural idioms that connect us as individuals to the social sphere. We do karaoke, we go to the movies, we vote in elections, we make art ... I take the things we do and incorporate them directly into video and performance pieces – recombining and repurposing them, celebrating and subverting them.
Everything I do is suffused by the history and the aesthetics of the cinema, that cultural institution that takes the things we do and replays them back to us, larger than life. Most often my work takes the form of video installations or outright films where I can usually be found as a performer, either personally engaging with social customs and cultural idioms, or using those things we do as a basis for engaging directly with the public. In general, I flirt with challenging and unsettling the audience; I think that this is what art should do. Just as I work with the things we do, I also enter into a dialogue with where we are – the context, the site. It is likewise a natural extension of my socially engaged practice to work in collaboration. For the past few years I have been making work in collaboration with Jeff Foye under the group name JEFF&GORDON.
Overall I challenge and revel in the relationship we each have with the social sphere – a relationship that sees each of us shaping our culture while also being shaped by culture.
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