body: pain is real when you think it is
D.B. Seve Theatre, Montreal, Quebec, 2001
as a video screening & Concordia University Open Studios as a mixed media installation

body: pain is real when you think it is is a mixed media installation composed of a digital video projection onto a white tilted coffee table, a motorcycle tyre hung from the ceiling by a steel chain and decorated with Christmas lights, a full-metal leather jacket painting entitled D.I.L.L.G.A.F. (do I look like I give a fuck), a digital print of a biker on a Harley Davidson, a crocheted rug, vintage stuffed cartoon characters, fake flowers, glitter and tattoo paraphernalia, red latex walls.

This video installation began as a contemporary portrait of my brother Elio, a NYC tattoo artist, the biker, a clown. During the annual Halloween parade in NYC 2000, this footage was captured of Elio at home in front of his medicine cabinet putting on clown make-up to participate in the parade dressed as a happy clown. His transformation from a biker, tough guy image to a soft, smiley clown was projected onto a coffee table that was lying on its side and a theatrical landscape was constructed to reference its own construct and to embody the social experience and/or excesses of identity that hover somewhere between illusion and reality.