Rachel Maclean
Edinburgh, GB, 1987 Works and lives in United Kingdom
Rachel Maclean (she/her) showcased her ground-breaking work in galleries, museums, film festivals and on television. Working across a variety of media, including video, digital print and VR, she makes complex and layered works that reference politics, fairy tales, celebrity culture and more. She received critical acclaim in the spheres of film and visual art both in the UK and internationally. Her major exhibitions include solo shows at Tate Britain, the National Gallery in London and Tel Aviv Museum of Art among many others. Maclean represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale in 2017 with her film commission Spite Your Face. In 2013, Maclean was awarded the prestigious Margaret Tait Award. Maclean’s biggest commission to date, upside mimi ᴉɯᴉɯ uʍop, is on permanent display at Jupiter Artland, Scotland. The installation includes her first fully animated short film, which had its premiere at the BFI London Film Festival.
Since we first caught sight of our reflections in still, dark waters, we started chasing self-image - driving us to refine the technologies we use to do so. At each step of this evolution, from silver-nitrate mirrors; to explosive flash powders and today’s one-eyed “selfie” cameras, new fables have emerged. These tales speak to the fragility of humanity and the fluidity of its values - each new reflecting pool becoming a site to question and play, or a means to entertain and bully guests at festivities. Mirrors - from those inhabiting the luxury salon to those in our linted pockets, each carry their own functions and emerging fairytales.
As new technologies create new opportunities to distort, beautify or otherwise adjust ourselves, in pursuit of self-knowledge, we become the protagonist of our own fantasies. Face filters engage us in a new daily ritual: the timeless ritual of masking - until today, these rituals take place in front of our phones. Through the screen of our phones we challenge binary structures and experience the prism of the self - while we train exploitative algorithms for ambitious startups, the development of neural networks and Artificial Intelligence. With every technological development, a slice of fiction becomes a reality. These fictions are a state of identity that emerges temporarily as we pursue freedom of movement and expression. Along the way, this occupation with ourselves generates new stories to immerse ourselves within.
The exhibition Screen, Screen on my Phone, Who’s the Fairest of Them All? is a follow-up on research that Doringer has conducted on the ritual of masking (2007-2018) known under the title FACELESS.