POWER RANGER

My art, in all it’s guises (visual, performance, musical, theatrical), deals with my body in a reactive way against Societies’ labelling of it, and actively invites confrontation of perceptions of it, and me. BORED with “validating” my self perception as art — for I know who I am — I’m more interested in setting up an inner confrontation for the audience, seeming to collude with and further propagate stereo-types, whilst simultaneously provoking the audience to question those stereotypes. This applies equally to the disability arts audience, for whom I hold an equal respect as the non disabled one. I find my-self imprisoned between the two, pandering to neither, relating to both, rejected and accepted in equal measures, in different ways that, combined, provide a reality and opinion overview that I can finally consider.

I’ve always been aware of the image power, certainly in relation to my body; used as a warning, for pity inducing, for scare tactics, for sympathy, for shock treatment, for fuck’s sake by others, and in reaction to the inaccuracies, misconceptions, and most of all lack of imagination, I decided to provide a more authoritative signature to further uses of my image by utilising evocations previously ham-fisted by others, and claim the territory for myself. At first a victim of, then an exploiter of this phenomenon, I’ve increasingly used my own image in more and more confrontational presentations, and now find that “telling the truth”, rather than being a painful reali-sation, is in fact fuelling me with outrageously ostracised power. My favourite kind. I’m an outrageously ostracised power ranger, and I’ve come to kick your face hard facade...  

For me from now the only preparatory process in considering images of me as art that is integral to their existence, is to have my author-ship stamped on them. I feel no need to beautify or uglify, to qualify, I’m the real fucking deal: I am porno, I am blood, I am titillation, I am revulsion, I am failure, success, beauty, ugly; the physical imper-fection reflection that offends Society’s stereotyped sensibilities, for I am a disabled person.

It’s true that this process is as much a catharsis for me as it is art. The art is also the catharsis is the art. As cultural standards and the politics of the day go hand in hand, the rejection of the politics and culture have to be part of my art/catharsis. As a reject of all things cultural myself, I am free to reject the notion of cultural politics not being art, and I do. But I also acknowledge that such a rejection alone does not mean it’s art. Not without a wrangle with the mangle that is the consideration of perceptions.

Mat Fraser