Pipilotti Rist was born Elisabeth Charlotte Rist on June 21, 1962, in Grabs, Switzerland. She took on the pseudonym ‘Pipilotti’ after her favourite childhood character Pippi Longstocking. It was mine too.
Rist would be amongst my favourite artists and I don’t know how many times I have included her in this online journal. At least once for each semester.
Once again I find something more to love. She was in an all girl post punk band, for which she created some of her earliest videos as an emerging artist.
I actually looked at her last semester as I was looking to do an experimental video / audio installation as my final semester project. I am now looking at her for the performance aspect of her work. Something that has been there in mine since my undergraduate degree yet it has become more important to the work I make.
Rist’s works are borne of her former band’s recordings, as they incorporate visual and musical experimentation with feminist interrogations of desire, sexuality, and femininity. She often performs her videos herself, placing herself ‘in psychedelic imagery and fairytale-like scenarios, accompanied by music that is equally manipulated.’
The works are amusing but generally say something quite pointed. In ‘Ever is over all’ a woman wears a pretty blue dress and sparkling red shoes like Dorothy in ‘The wizard of Oz’ and strolling down the street, smiling, in slow motion, she smashes car windows with a broom sized long stemmed flower. A female cop passes her and nods to her. Approving her ‘disruptive’ behaviour. This is juxtaposed by close ups and sweeping shots in a field of the actual flowers known as red hot pokers.
The work was borne after she was commissioned to do a magazine or newspaper issue and she wanted to put an older woman on the cover and the male editor or publisher or whatever told her the magazine wouldn’t sell and she wanted to smash his car. Knowing he wasn’t really worth it, she made this instead. Brilliant. I see a real relevance to my project now.
In I'm Not The Girl Who Misses Much, 1986 a woman in a pretty low cut dress sings and dances herself into hysteria using speed. Sped up, slowed down, dancing round and falling down in an adaption of the 1st line from John Lennon’s “Happiness is a Warm Gun”. Rist’s chaotic direction thus becomes ‘a way for her to take visual control of her body and disallow its objectification’.
Its not so much a comment on portrayals of women in mass media and popular culture, Rist says her appropriations of male musicians’ songs as well as her depictions of feminine agitation is more the influence of experimental films such as the Fluxus art of Yoko Ono. Although Rist draws from popular culture, her aim is to break down the boundaries between art elitism and mass entertainment, which she believes can help viewers engage more readily with works of art. This resonates with me.
In ‘I’m a Victim of This Song' (1995) it is more about the voice. Rist is singing Chris Isaak’s pop ballad “Wicked Game”. Its harrowing, with Rist repeatedly shrieking ‘What a wicked thing to do…to make me fall in love with you’ and ‘no I don’t want to fall in love….’. It builds to a crescendo where she doubles the voice, the 2nd actually screaming the lyrics. All the while ethereal, slow motion video of clouds and blurred action willows away on a tv screen. By denying the viewer’s visual and aural expectations, the work suggests an alternative approach to not only the song’s interpretation, but also female representation.
Wow. Ive never looked at Ms Rist from this perspective and it was illuminating. It has given me the impetus I need to tackle the onerous task of editing my video up tomorrow.