Restless Leg Saga
HD video, 7’14’’. 2012
In the video work by Shana Moulton, the artist’s fictive character Cynthia suffers from Restless Leg Syndrome and seeks relief in pharmaceutical ads on TV and in health magazines. In a domestic world enlivened with animated dance and mystic poetry (written and read by poet John Coletti), Cynthia finds relief in the healing mineral AION A, discovered by Swiss artist Emma Kunz. The Swiss Healing Rock Powder cures restless legs by multiplying them and making them dance. Although humorous and whimsical, this video questions the effect of social and cultural beliefs that opens the door to the “wellness” industry, with its many products and strategies.
Artist's Bio:
Shana Moulton (1976, California) is a video and performance artist based in Oakhurst, California, who explores contemporary anxieties through her filmic alter ego, Cynthia. She creates unexpected relationships between commercial and spiritual worlds in her colourful, surreal videos. Combining an unsettling, wry humour with a low-tech, Pop sensibility, she plays a character whose interactions with the everyday world are both mundane and surreal. As her protagonist navigates the enigmatic and possibly magical properties of her home decor, Moulton initiates relationships with objects and consumer products that are at once banal and uncanny.