Ladies!
Video Installation (rear-projection, 8 ft x 6ft), microFM radio broadcast, Greenhouses at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, 2002.

"Ladies!" is a 5 minute video loop documenting the sex life of a ladybug. An insect often associated with a specific gender (female), witnessing two ladybugs riding each other arouses curiousity, shock and voyeurism. These responses are loaded with various cultural associations and ideologies for many viewers and passers-by.

The video is composed of a variety of medium and close up shots of insects in the wild. These are cut with an animated sequence of swarms of ladybugs crawling over each other and morphing into a homogenous mass of movement. As the camera pulls back, it is revealed that the "ladies" were being watched not just by the documenter, but also by a couple of crickets who took position on the same leaf. Interspersed within these sequences was a reference to a Czech storybook about Mr. Ferda(an ant ) and his girlfriend Beruska (a ladybug). This animated component is a handdrawn ladybug with highheels and a purse walking across the screen. This childhood series of books were the basis of my understanding of the ladybug as female.


 
The only access to the video was from the outside of the glasswalled greenhouses. The projection could be seen from a distance, but the sound could be heard only in the vicinity of the greenhouse. The radio broadcast varied over the days, but focused on transmitting songs containing the word "Lady". This was cut with a woman D.J.'s voice and a number of call-in comments from listeners, discussing the pleasurable, miserable and insistently repetitive activity of falling in love and/or lust. The greenhouses were located at the edge of a parking lot so it was possible to drive up and tune in to the radio station while sitting comfortable in your car.

Playfully commenting on gender and sexual politics, "Ladies!" uses humour to foreground a numaber of cultural assumptions- and not just these about insects...