Amanda Horowitz
Amanda Horowitz’s interdisciplinary work mixes the autobiographical with imaginary world building and politics. Her projects, through video, performance, and sculpture, serve as a platform for her own reckoning with coming of age, and a search for a femininity that she feels at home in.
Revenge Poem (2015) is an epic poem attempting to understand the motivations for producing revenge porn and reconcile with its effects. In three parts, the video explores the amorphous space between victim and perpetrator, reserving empathy for both parties. The video includes a call and response between a digital avatar of a male cyber-rapist and a female artist, played by Horowitz herself. In writing the monologue for the male cyber-rapist, the artist occupies his voice as a form of drag, and comes to understand that the real subject of revenge porn is not the female nude, but the male’s direct participation in embarrassing and shaming her. The piece follows an abstract, lyrical script, like a battle song or incantation that challenges the very premise of the female victim narrative.
