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Vital Statistics of a Citizen, Simply Obtained

Martha Rosler

1977 00:39:20 United StatesEnglishColorMono4:3Video
Tags:
Body, Feminism, Performance, Science

Description

Taking aim at the social standardization enforced particularly on women's bodies, Rosler critiques the politics of "objective" or scientific evaluation that result in the depersonalization, objectification, and colonization of women and Others. As Joseph Di Mattia has pointed out, "The title of the tape is ironic--just exactly to whom are these 'statistics' 'vital'? They are vital to a society which circumscribes the behavior and roles of women." Throughout this video Rosler situates the female body as the site of an ideological struggle, a site of physically realized domination, which degrades, demeans, and subjugates women.

"[This] is the most pointedly feminist of Rosler's tapes. Every inch of the artist's nude body is measured and recorded by two doctors, while voiceovers comment on standards, body ideals, and their relation to masochism."

— Mary Stofflett, "Art or television," Studio International 195 (June 1982)

This title is also available on Surveying the First Decade: Volume 1 and martha rosler: crossings.

About Martha Rosler

Since the early 1970s, Martha Rosler has used photography, performance, writing, and video to deconstruct cultural reality. Describing her work, Rosler says, “The subject is the commonplace — I am trying to use video to question the mythical explanations of everyday life. We accept the clash of public and private as natural, yet their separation is historical. The antagonism of the two spheres, which have in fact developed in tandem, is an ideological fiction — a potent one. I want to explore the relationships between individual consciousness, family life, and culture under capitalism.” 

Avoiding a pedantic stance, Rosler characteristically lays out visual and verbal material in a manner that allows the contradictions to gradually emerge, so that the audience can discern these disjunctions for themselves. By making her ideas accessible, Rosler invites her audience to re-examine the dynamics and demands of ideology, urging critical consciousness of the individual compromises exacted by society, and opening the door to a radical re-thinking of how cultural “reality” is constructed for the economic and political benefit of a select group.

Also see:
Martha Rosler: An Interview