Output details

The Windmills of Your Mind

The research aim is to investigate the theatrical dynamic of erotic performance (striptease) in opposition to perceptions of the gendered gaze by the application of surveillance/night vision technologies and high visibility textiles.

Adkins synthesises technology, materiality and performance, a dialectic methodology to explore received understanding of clothing as sexual signifier identified by Liepe-Levinson (Strip Show: Performances of Gender and Desire).

As part of her work as an artist Adkins has conducted extensive research working with high-visibility fabrics within a performance art context – exhibiting nationally and internationally including commissions for Centre of Contemporary Art, Glasgow and The Philadelphia Festival of Visual and Live Art, USA.

Adkins commissioned a burlesque dancer to perform a choreographed strip routine wearing high-visibility costumes in a blacked-out space. Adkins filmed the performance using domestic CCTV night-vision cameras to create an alternative, negative reading (through its recording) of a performance.

This methodology focused on new technologies both digital and material to further discourse around the gendered gaze and erotic performance. This methodology of combining high-visibility fabrics, night vision and striptease performance resulted in an innovative reading of Perniola’s ‘’the transit’ theory (‘Between Clothing and Nudity’) to a wider audience.

‘Windmills of Your Mind’ was commissioned for the international exhibition curated by Joanna Tekla Wozniak and Zbiniew Kotkiewicz ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’ at Arsenal Gallery and Museum, Poland.

‘Windmills of Your Mind’ has had multiple outputs nationally and internationally *see digital portfolio for evidence. The research project was funded by a research support award from the University of the Creative Arts (2007-8) and funded by the Arts Council of England (2010), Galleria Miejska Arsenal, Poznan Civic Council, Scottish Polish Cultural Association and Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Edinburgh. The work has been reviewed internationally as well as peer reviewed within the accompanying exhibition publication.