PRACTICE KEY WORDS(!): MOVING IMAGE, WORLD-BUILDING, DIGI-NOVELS, VIDDING, QUEER, CASTE, SEX, SOUTH ASIA, BIRMINGHAM
ABOUT ME
When I was 16, my favourite teacher told my friend that sometimes she "gets lost in Seemaworld...". It was in that moment, that I realised that chatting to me is simply a vehicle to a world of weirdness - of escapism - of deranged ramblings - of ME. To date, I've modelled my practice around this:
2016~2020
For me, Moving Image has been an act of penetration between the physical body and digital lens.
Mainly through manipulation of disparate online material combined with installation, sound and videos in which I've acted and enhanced, the work often comprises four key components of minority: race, gender, caste and sexuality. It’s reflective of interwoven complexities around these states of consciousness and it exists as I do.
2020- [DIGI-NOVELS]
My mind dips in and out of one world whilst my body is only partly in another - then society tugs me elsewhere. By making sense of these interlocking worlds, I now seek to redefine and unpack what I'm bound by in this body and investigate how digital technologies advance bias fed by both religious and secular faith, tradition and assumption.
Most recently, I'm producing content through animation, illustration and 3D world-building to explore this. In progress, is a control platform I'm building for audiences to access a non-linear series of short form moving image works (or Digi-Novels) set in a dystopian, semi-autobiographical, high-fantasy world I've constructed entirely myself.
Through depictions of simple rituals of the human experience, I'm exploring themes of consent, representation and fluidity with a hope to dismantle the complications that surround them - in conjunction with my usual championing of LGBT+, non-specific and othered people.
SEEMA MATTU
aka: Sim
based in: Birmingham/London, UK
d.o.b: 30~10~1993
**scorpio**
pronouns: she/her
**but flu~id**
2020- [FAN LABOUR]
I'm obsessed with FAN LABOUR (especially in line with anime/animation/manga) and want to create work which provokes direct, tangible responses from others through their own explorations, e.g. fan art, fanfiction, etc. In turn, I'm fascinated by the role of the FANATIC, and the ways in which I can explore this through fan labour practices e.g. merchandise empires and assuming the position of the fanatic through Vidding*.
In line with my Digi-Novels then, my Moving Image work has evolved into the mimicry and interrogation of the form of the music video. I'm particularly intrigued by the irony of making short films as a marketing ploy for my own online presence and how far I can push performing as a fan of my self.
*Vidding: "A fan labor practice in media fandom of creating music videos from the footage of one or more visual media sources, thereby exploring the source itself in a new way."
EDUCATION
2016 BA Fine Art, Central Saint Martins University of the Arts London
2013 Foundation Diploma in Art & Design, Camberwell College of Art, University of the Arts London
EXHIBITIONS / EVENTS
2020 Dykeumentary TV (Episode 18: Avatars, Alteregos, Power and Superpowers, PhillyCam [online, USA]
2019 CineDiaspora presents: Celluloids of Desire [New York, USA]
2019 The Range, Eastside Projects [Birmingham, UK]
2018 lgbt+F: planet 2028, TOMBOY, LUX [London, UK]
2018 Perverse Pleasures [Rhode Island, USA]
2018 OUTing The Past: Conference [Liverpool, UK]
2018 Desi Lesbians: Where Are You?, Gaysians, London, UK
2018 Pla(t)form 18, Fotomuseum [Winterthur, Zurich]
2017 Collect:if Presents: Gaysian Superheroes, SQIFF [Glasgow, Scotland]
2017 Brixton Reel: Too Desi Too Queer, School of Oriental and African Studies [London, UK]
2017 Soon: South Asian Evocations and Becomings, Chinatown Soup [New York, USA]
2017 Zayn Malik Zindabad 3.0, The White Pube, LCB Depot [Leicester, UK]
2017 Zayn Malik Zindabad 2.0, The White Pube, Institute of Contemporary Arts [London, UK]
2016 Zayn Malik Zindabad, The White Pube, Lewisham Arthouse [London, UK]
2016 *Restrictions Apply, Westpoint Studios [London, UK]
2016 Practice as Self Care : Live Talk & Reading, Cera Project [London, UK]
2016 Concrete Burns, Central Saint Martins University of the Arts London [London, UK]
2016 Hand Maid, Sweet Arts, Hoxton Arches [London, UK]