Star Crossed was a solo RMIT First Site Gallery exhibition featuring immersive video and sound installation works, titled ‘Modern Romance’ & ‘Star Crossed’. Star Crossed featured a slowed down 6 minute clip of the drag king performer Rocco mouthing the words from Radio Heads song creep: ‘I want a perfect body, I want a perfect soul’. The short duration video looped with slow out of sync sound.
“Jesse Symon’s recent videos critique relations of power and prohibition by performing pop against the grain. The exhibition’s title – Star Crossed – speaks both of uncontrollable desire and the tragedy of its inevitable obstruction by the dictates of convention. Modern Romance is composed of two renditions of ‘80s love songs. Originally sung by male vocalists, these tracks are now dressed in drag. The recitals are accompanied by the requisite repertoire of dance moves, and crooned into makeshift microphones. Pixelated almost to breaking point, the footage appears as a stream of coloured granules that ripple across the screen like the stippling of Impressionism.” catalogue essay excerpt ‘I’ll be your mirror’ by Amelia Barikin
