A Mild Fag
interpretation, despite its apparent populist ease, Nooshin Farhid’s video explores the notion of casual dialogue, throw away remarks between friends. The jockey innocuousness of clichéd comments and tabloid politics exchanged between two interlocutors reveals a plethora of ‘learnt behaviours,’ references to guilt, desire, temptation, we are assured by both characters that they know ‘how the world works’, the system of control that they are ‘cleverly’ avoiding, whilst in fact by doing so they simply, unknowingly enter into another system. Permeating these dialogues is always the need to fallback to humour, sometimes dark, as reflected in the story of the man with one leg, sometimes as macho banter between mates. This humour whilst releasing us from the tension of the subject has secondary effect of introducing a notion of fear and anxiety.”
performance: Brian Connoly and Ian Bond
Exhibition:
2005 - When in Rome Vl. Midland Art Centre, Birmingham
