To be developed as part of a Bundanon Trust Artist Residency in 2012.

Obitsu Solos is a series of animated dance solos exploring the featureless female form in contemporary dance practice.

Obitsu Solos’ explores the female form as an object in contemporary dance aesthetics via anthropomorphic action, delves into the personal politics of aesthetic beauty, physical control, and facelessness as a means of objectification.

No hair, eyes, mouth, obitsu has no gaze, no voice and exists in stasis without the animator, yet is still strangely compelling for the viewer, such is our conditioned fascination with the female as object.

Obitsu Solos is an extension of a body of work I have made around the objectified female form, and sterotyped sexuality, subverting expected modes of identity, communication and action.

The project subverts the obitsu subculture practice of applying dress, painted features, wigs, and personal histories to the figurine.

We share a universal drive to believe in the potential of magic, a desire to explain the inexplicable, to overcome the impossible, to achieve our destiny.

Created and performed by Taryn Brine, Kate Brown, Madison Chippendale, Cameron Ellis, Sam Koh, Annabelle McMillan, Lucille Lehr, Tanya Thaweeskulcha, Emma White and Amber Wilcox.

Directed by Cat Jones and Julie Vulcan with sound design and composition by Melissa Hunt, lighting design by Emma Lockhart Wilson, design by Lucy Thornett.

Season 23 November – 10 December, Wednesday to Saturday at PACT centre for emerging artists, Sydney.

What the reviewers said…

“…engaged and delighted…fascinating. Each section surprising, each unique from each other. This is a work which would easily exist at the Biennale – or within a festival – fun and fantastical and at times very, very beautiful…it invites you to have an experience – not merely view as a spectator – it invites you to be submerged into a surprising reality. One which I loved.”

Augusta Supple

UNSETTLINGS PACT centre for emerging artists 2010

Can we ever trust what we are told?

Our cultural landscapes are flattened in a cycle of unspoken distortions. Our foundations are built on shadows. Our personal histories, on shifting terrains. Unsettlings disturbs the silt of our heritance to expose absurdity in our (un)truths.

A performance by the PACT Ensemble 2010 directed by Cat Jones and Julie Vulcan. Devised by Alice Cooper / Noni Cowan / Sam Duncan / Wilna Fourie / Jonathan Gurton / Mayu Iwasaki / Grant Moxom / Lisa Mumford / Sean Serpa / Amelia Wallin / Lucy Watson / Maria White. Sound design by Melissa Hunt. Lighting design by Emma Lockhart-Wilson.

Big Butch Billboard, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, image by Deborah Kelly 2009

Cat Jones  – so butch, for Deborah Kelly’s Big Butch Billboard: Mahalia Jones Is Butch at Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade 2009, presented in partnership with Australian Centre for Photography.

Heard, Experimenta, by Rhys Turner and Mel Ramos, 2009

Heard is an interactive artwork exploring cultural and social views through sophisticated tracking technology in virtual as well as physical space. The work explores ideas around online social networking environments and how the proliferation of these spaces effect the way by which people relate and interact with one another.

As one of the writer’s for Mel Ramos and Rhys Turner’s audience interactive work, commissioned by Experimenta, Cat created the characters Daphne and her dog Biscuit.

The artwork invites audiences to wear a wireless digital headpiece and ‘become’ one of the characters they see on screen. They then physically explore the installation space as well as a virtual environment, which is projected onto the wall in front of them. As they walk around the space, they trigger and listen to the musings of the character they have ‘become’. These characters reflect upon their ideals, values, hopes and dreams. When there is more than one person in the space, a conversation between characters is triggered when people approach one another. This conversation can be heard through the headpieces as well as seen in text that appears on the projected screen. The writing team used grid modules to structure the interactive conversations.

www.gogetheard.com

Switch by Cat Jones for The Conversation Contraption, Casula Powerhouse, Sydney, 2008

Switch is a mobile communication unit for live instant messaging manned by the sweetest ever Switch Bitch, Cat Jones. Switch delivers intimate messages for you and from you. Part medium, part analogue message machine, she offers a translation service, receives and connects calls on your behalf from distant lands and even from your past.

The Conversation Contraption is an interactive installation by The League of Imaginary Scientists, appearing all round the world with local and remote contributing artists.

Constellation, by Cat Jones and Lucy HG, 2006

A woman is woken and disturbed by her sheet. Stop motion animation exploring transformations of everyday experiences, created by Cat Jones and Lucy HG in the development stage one of Cat Jones project Lamentable You , a live, multi media performance.

constellation was co-directed, shot and edited by Lucy HG. constellations has since been screened as part of a festival in Ceska.

gendocite, catgURL by Cat Jones at SGLMG 2002

catgURL is a webmistress to cry for. she’s kitsch, queer, carnal and just a little bit cyber. she patrols sexual parameters in a virtual world of many genders. she defies stereotypes and deconstructs the universal desire for definitive sexuality. in a journey around the internet catgURL pursues metaphors for self discovery. audience logon as users, create their own identities, have a private chat and write their own gURL fictions. catgURL fetishises manual jargon, rounds up users and boots out lurkers. her transitory encounters with the audience create a new social politic every night. chapters include catsexing, doghandling, gendocite, chat noir, the femin_9′s and pap culture.

catgURL is an interactive, multi-media performance event, written and created by Cat Jones. The content for the work is created in “chapters”. The work is modular and can be cut-up, re-pasted and performed or viewed in multiple platforms or modes. The primary content is created around text (aural and visual), that crosses languages and mixes lexicons. catgURL consists of a large  body of work and is an ongoing project that could appear anywhere, anytime.

catgURL has been created in collaboration with djbc,  Lucinda Clutterbuck, Sam James, Gail Kelly, Justin Moon and Jo Croft and has been supported by the Australia Council’s New Media Arts Board and Theatre Boards, Performance Space, The Ian Potter Foundation, and the Department for Performance Studies.

catgURL has appeared at titt…titrott (WA), Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, Performance Space, That Elusive Thrill, Queer Bits 1 & 2 by Onextra, Divine Divas (UK), Octopussy, The Circus and Physical Theatre Conference (QLD) plus parks, shops and homes.

pap culture, catgURL, with text content by the audience, Performance Space 2005

Steel Fracture, Party Line, Performance Space, Australian Technology Park, 2001

Steel Fracture was an interdisciplinary performance exploring the affects of steel on women’s bodies through the ages created by The Party Line for Performance Space. Cat Jones created the persona Naemia exploring concepts of the celluloid closet,  blood lust and addiction through performance, vocals and live feed video.

Artists: Gail Kelly (direction), Liberty Kerr (sound), Justine Cooper (visual media), Jam (steel), Angus Strathie (costumes), Clytie Smith (light), Shane Rowlands (text) and performers Cat Jones (live, vocals and live feed video), Celia White (live and vocals), Jo Croft, Barbara Clare Totterdell (live and vocals) and Stace Callaghan.

The Party Line was a company known for highly political, physical and visual performance works. Core members included Gail Kelly, Celia White, Simone O’Brien.