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Camilleri, Austin

Austin Camilleri
video artist from Malta
biography

He participates in
VideoChannel – Video Art from Malta

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Title:
Title of work:
Lonesome death of Hattie Carrol
2004, 5:55

short description of work
Lonesome death of Hattie Carroll is a pop title for a three channel video questioning the notion of reality and truth in a Big Brother society. Roles and performances are portrayed as the currency of human interaction. Camilleri presents us a trio of performers from relative anonymity to iconic status.

The work consists of a young lady putting on makeup, a crying infant and famous tenor Joseph Calleja taking off his stage makeup after an opera performance in Vienna. The three videos are framed in a triptych reminiscent of religious imagery.

As Dr. Regelmann states in his description of the work, “it is a very plain sociological truth that we all play roles in our whole societal life, even in its most private parts. Playing roles for the most people means to cast various more or less distinguished parts during their lifetime, especially people who are permanently faced with challenges tend to develop multiple characters – sorry, I mean personalities. But what are such multiple personalities? If you watch people closely you will find out: They represent patchwork images they got accustomed to like to project on themselves. And as soon as they do so, the question of authenticity emerges.”

curated by Vince Briffa, Malta