Chaired Anxieties Addendum: Autism

"In Addendum: Autism, the artist faces the stationary camera in direct address; she confronts the viewer one-on-one, her head filling the frame in close-up. Her mouth slightly open, Dara Birnbaum stares with unblinking intensity into the camera. She performs a series of anxious gestures: she runs her face, pushes her long hair behind her ears. Her breathing audible, she leans back and begins bouncing rhythmically, rocking up and down and back and forth in repetitive motions, without breaking her fixed, wide-eyed gaze. Her movements become increasingly sexualized, yet her insistent, trancelike stare remains uncannily childlike. The viewer is implicated in the camera's gaze, to unsettling effect." (LZ)

Text reprinted with permission from Dara Birnbaum: The Dark Matter of Media Light. Karen J.Kelly, Barbara Schröder, and Giel Vandecaveye. Ghent/Porto/Munich: Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst/Museu Serralves/Del Monico Books-Prestel, 2011. p. 166.