Tamy Ben-Tor, Normal, 2006
Tamy Ben-Tor, The End of Art, 2006
Tamy ben-tor uses social identities to construct video performance works that look at the prejudices prevalent in contemporary society. Her videos are a collage of different satirized stereotypes acted out in an outrageous and conspicuous manner. Ben-tor's work on identity and stereotypes is interested in peoples psychological state, the psychological state they hold when they are apparently just being themselves. However each character is exaggerated, overtly absurd, an imitation of media and televisions simplified version of the social individual. Each character is completely self-absorbed, caught in their own ideological systems, they cling to truth (however fake that truth may be) in order to construct and experience their own identity.
The works poses the question of how much the natural world conditions us and how much of our ideas, thoughts and ideologies today - with our continuous confrontation with media, advertising and television, are shaped by the what we see and hear on our 2 dimension screen.
The question of identity has become a big concern in contemporary society and the answers are hard to determine. What makes the individual an individual, what does it mean to be individual and who determines good and bad.. and does or should this distinction exist?
Identity is 'the fact of being who or what ones is' and how much of this is now being shaped and how much of us - ourself, unique and self-conscious, shapes who we are - our identity?
Each of Tamy Ben-Tors characters are uniquely human, even if this is unfortunately so.
The works are comparable to Cindy Shermans role playing or staged film and photography in the sense that they both play with the appearance of an individuals identity.
She also had a work at the 2008 Sydney Biennial, you can view the work on the website and also alot of her work is on youtube.com.
Images from Art Review
http://www.artreview.com/forum/topic/show?id=1474022%3ATopic%3A151630
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